Introduction to Ancient Egypt! Rosetta Stone, Palette of Narmer and more!

Okay, everybody welcome back. We're gonna go ahead and move on to our next topic now ancient Egypt I know Egypt is of course a fascinating civilization that I'm going to give you kind of an overview of all their Dramatic history between about 3100 and 1200 BC as you can see there Before we get into that just a quick review remember last time we talked about Mesopotamia the dawn of civilization You know in Western civilization really in much of the world Egypt is of course another of these dominant civilizations That yes is in North Africa But we also talk about in Western civilization world civilization you cover it in many areas Because of its location and so you know from the last lecture, you know make sure you know the characteristics of civilization How civilization began the issues of geography which we're going to see in this lecture as well? And all those key points there alright, so make sure you're just you know You're on top of all that before you move on to the next topic here, so what do we want to start with well? let's go to our first set of keywords here and This you can just go ahead and write down and these are the major time periods of Egyptian history You can see the archaic period old kingdom first intermediate middle kingdom second intermediate new kingdom again You can always pause to write everything down Notice the dates there you don't need to memorize those exact dates or anything like that I just kind of put those things for reference You know the only time period that sometimes you may need to know is we'll get to 1200 BC That's kind of a good date to know because that's going to pop up a few times circa 3000 BC you know you see you know remember if you remember in Mesopotamia they started around 3000 BC So does Egypt so that's kind of where a lot of quote unquote civilizations begin, but all the specific dates of each time period I'm not going to test you on right well You are going to need to know and what's the objective of the lectures today is to basically go through each of these time periods And know what are the big events of each time period the one we're going to spend the most time on will be the archaic Period we'll also talk about the new kingdom as well We'll go through all of them, but definitely I'll spend the most time on the archaic period for for my set of lectures on ancient Egypt so just be aware of that so go ahead get all this down if you haven't done so yet And again you want to know all the different characteristics of each time period and what happens And I'll give you some name of some pharaohs, but that'll be more when we get to the new kingdom All right, so hope all that's clear again. If you need a pause to get all the names down. That's great or the terms down That's great And then we'll move on now before we get to the archaic period the first thing we need to talk about is Geography so let me bring up a map of Egypt and talk about the geography and why geography is important in Egypt Just like geography was important in Mesopotamia So here's our map of Egypt and the key words you see there, and when you think of Egypt You know usually very quickly people think of a couple things They think of the deserts and they think of the rivers and so it's not enough just to know there are deserts And there are rivers you have to understand. You know the impact of these things Why are these things important and so first of all make sure you get the key things down you have the Nubian desert and the Sahara Desert the Sahara is the one that more people are familiar with the Nubian desert is a little bit further south It's kind of cut off on the map here. You also have you can see here. It says the eastern desert So as long as you know Sahara Nubian you know eastern is another good one to know I guess These deserts are important now the question is why are these deserts important right and the obvious reasons that people think of as well It's hot right and you know if anybody's ever been in the Middle East I've been to the Middle East many times, and if you go there in the summer It's ridiculously hot and so you know it's gonna make take somebody quite a bit of Desire to say hey, let's cross the desert and go invade Egypt because it takes forever to get through these a these deserts There's no cars. No trains. No air-conditioning So you're not gonna just go across the desert to attack Egypt and so the reason why these deserts are important is they? provide a sense of Security it's kind of their their force field that protects them from invasions for a very long time When you looked at the dates of Egypt one thing. I hope you noticed all of that was Egypt Yes, they were divided into different time periods, but it was all Egypt in Mesopotamia There was a bunch of different civilizations coming and going in Egypt It was all Egypt all the time pretty much with you know a couple of exceptions And that's because they were so well protected so remember you have that chart I'm going to give you on geography so you can kind of use that chart also to keep all this in And on track and so you definitely want to know that now the other important part of Egypt is the river And it's the most famous River probably in the world the Nile River, and you can see again on the map here And one of the interesting things about the Nile River is the Nile actually flows from the south to the north right it flows from the south to the north and So because of that you know we kind of see these terms that sometimes mix up students You know the river flows from the south to the north most rivers. We think of north go north to south That's why if you look at the map here, and we erase this You'll see where it says Lower Egypt up top and upper Egypt down below Because the way the river flows so when we say upper Egypt we're talking about the south when we say lower Egypt We talk about the north so that's something that just sometimes mixes people up to be careful on that Beyond that we need to understand again Why is the Nile important and the Nile you know does the same things for Egypt as the Tigris and Euphrates did for Mesopotamia? It provides food it provides water and again as always you want to get all these points down You don't just want the key words you want to make sure you're getting all the important details It provides water it provides mud to build it provides fish that you can attract that for food Animals that it attracts to hunt all the basic things that the rivers gift transportation Communication, but there's more to the Nile River That's different from the Tigris and Euphrates and a couple things that are different one is its consistency You know remember we talked about the Tigris and Euphrates I explained how the rivers sometimes Overflow their banks and flood in the epic of Gilgamesh I talked about that the Nile is very consistent You know when it's going to overflow its banks when it's going to recede and so if you're living along the Nile River This gives you a big advantage. You know where to plant your crops you know when What what type of crops to plant you know when you're gonna have your harvest and it was very predictable in fact It was so predictable a great little story the Pharaohs picked up on this and we'll talk a little bit about the Pharaohs in a bit But when the Pharaohs knew that the Nile was going to overflow its banks what the Pharaohs would do is they would go to upper Egypt and they would get on some big fancy smancy raft and They would wait for the currents to Overflow the banks and so the the Nile begins to overflow its banks and there get on a raft And they're going from upper Egypt to lower Egypt Meanwhile all the people in Egypt are sitting along the Nile River and the Pharaoh is getting on this raft at the same time that The river is rising and it looks like to the people there that the Pharaoh is bringing water to the people You know that's really good PR And so even the Pharaohs picked up on that so that's one Really important point that I want you to know about the Nile River. It was very consistent Another interesting thing about the Nile River is I explained how the river flows from the south to the north But very often the wind currents went from the north to the south now. Why does that matter? Well what that allows is the Nile River to be very used very effectively for Transportation because if I want to go from upper Egypt to lower Egypt All I do is let the current take me and I get there if I want to go from lower Egypt to upper Egypt I could use the wind power by building some sails Which the Egyptians were good at doing and I can move up and down the Nile River very quickly And so this allows everybody there to kind of unify and be together and be united So that's the one very important point about the Nile River as well It's just that consistency and how it flows and the wind currents combined made it like it moves It's like a freeway, you know, it's like the 91 freeway except it moves You don't want to kill everybody on it and so moves back and forth really quickly. So you have that What else another thing about the Nile River one more point before? We go on to some other images here is the Nile River You know when you look at the gods of Egypt remember we talked about the gods in Mesopotamia And I said they were very manipulate the gods in Egypt tend to be much more benevolent and the reason that is is because They there is a more positive atmosphere Geographically, right? You're not invaded as much you have the Nile River And so you see, you know the Sun God or the God of the Nile to him to the Nile You know You see these references is kind of the nurturer and the giver and so forth because of what it did So that's what you have there as well So you could see what I mean by how geography impacts things and impacts them In terms of stability and impacts religion impacts, you know, basic food supply all of those things Let me show you a couple really dramatic images to show you how significant the Nile River is So these next two images I think are really cool and I want to share with everyone So here's an image. It's a satellite image and it's the earth at night and it specifically Captures the Nile River and you could see today, you know, all of this area roughly is Egypt You get the idea All this area is Egypt there and you know, almost everybody in Egypt is living along the Nile River about over 90% of the population of Egypt today lives right next to the Nile River and it shows you the Significance of the river all the way till today and it's not just the Nile, you know If you look at the global element of this, it's pretty remarkable. Look at this next image. I love this photo It's one of my favorites This is an image of the earth at night And when you look closely at this it tells us so much I could spend a half hour just on this one image But you know again if you see very closely depending if you're seeing this on a big screen or not But there's the Nile River again, but you see much more than the Nile River You see how almost everyone lives near the water and even you know places where you know Like Europe is lit up everywhere. Very very well lit up There's always the edge if you kind of find this picture and you can zoom into this picture You can go online and find this picture easily just type in earth at night and you can see how densely Populated the the borders are you could see other geographical features? Like if you look at India and the lights just stop that's because there's the Himalayas These dots over here, you know, that's Hawaii and you can see, you know in the middle of Pacific Ocean Hawaii It shows it's more developed. You see how the eastern part of the u.s. Has more lights than the western Well, where did we start from the east? And there's so many different things you can learn from this map One of the most dramatic and if you get a chance to really go and find this image and zoom in Let me circle something here for you. Let me erase all these other marks here And I'm gonna circle and I want to ask yourself a question. So I'm circling over here and Here's a big blob of lights. That's Japan. And if you look right next to Japan, there's another blob of lights right over there Right right over here. I'm circling it as well Now when you first look at that, let me erase it so you can see it again I asked my students what does this look like and very often students say well, that's an island except It's not an island. Actually, there is a blob of lights and then it goes dark and then there's more lights That's Korea and I really encourage you to go and find a close-up image of this and it is stunning You see where the lights just abruptly stop at the 38th parallel because you have North Korea and South Korea And so North Korea, which is a communist dictatorship in South Korea, which is a free capitalistic society Have completely different life-life living Standards there the South is flourishing and the North is suffering there. It's just darkness up there in the north and that's again directly related to the fact of the Governments and the politics there if you ever want to know the difference between free democratic nations and communist socialist dictatorships There you have it. Just look at that image. So there's a lot to this I don't want to spend a lot of time on this because we're covering ancient Egypt here But I think it's pretty cool. All right, so let's move on now now we've covered the geography And talk about some other key parts of Egyptian history So we'll start with the archaic period now the archaic period is the first time period there are about I think I'm gonna go through like six six things I want you to know during the archaic period and again when I talk about in your notes if I say there are Six things you want to know during the archaic period Make sure you jot them down one, two, three, four, five six because again you can have a quiz question of what are two things that happened during the archaic period or I might talk about something and say when did it happen and you'd have to know was during an archaic period as opposed to the Old Kingdom, so those are type of quiz questions that might come up now were there people again? The archaic period is about 3100 3,000 BC Were there people living in Egypt before the archaic period and the answer is yes, but it's not really united And so what happens around the year 31? 3000 BC the first point I want you to know it's during this time that Egypt Unites right and it becomes one Egypt instead of these little what they were called gnomes You don't need to know that term, but they unite and what happens is there's a specific person named Narmir That's the first name you see here Narmir or menace sometimes referred to Narmir sometimes referred to as menace and he was the king of upper Egypt and what he does is he conquers lower Egypt and He unites the areas and on this other side here of the image You actually see a very famous palette called the palette of Narmir and this palette of Narmir helps depict the unification And so I'm just gonna go through this quickly It's one items two sides to it And so we'll start over here on the left and you see this big guy over here the tallest guy. That's Narmir Obviously, he's the biggest guy in the image because he's the most important guy and he's standing over there smiting the other king essentially Down here on the bottom. You see these two people. They're probably running away Over here on the bottom. It looks like a bull trampling somebody in the middle It's actually two lions and their heads are being intertwined And it's kind of symbolic of the unification and then over here on the top again You see Narmir he's walking and then here on the side Again if you're watching this like on your phone or something, it's really small You won't see it. Well, if you see it on a computer and a bigger screen, you'll see this really well and if you flip this over turn your head what you see there actually decapitated people and that shows us his conquests and What you have actually is no heads here and their heads are actually in between their legs And if you get to a real close-up, he didn't just decapitate their heads he decapitated another part of their bodies Which will be named lameless and that part of their body is actually lying on top of each head So there you go, and you can look that up with all the detail you like if you want to So that's the first thing that happens during the archaic period. I want you to know about the unification, right? So that's number one. So hopefully that's clear again The person responsible is Narmir or Menas. So you can you can have a quiz question. Who was the person responsible for the unification of Egypt and you would say Narmir. All right number two the second big thing that happens during the Egyptian period is one of the most famous things we associate with Egypt and that is the story of the hieroglyphics now the story of the hieroglyphics is pretty interesting and It's the writing that develops in ancient Egypt But I want to tell you a little bit of story and show you some images about this So the deal with the hieroglyphics is this For the longest time we had hieroglyphic writing, but nobody knew What it meant no one can translate it and so I'm gonna tell you a little story of how hieroglyphics were translated and it starts about the year 1800 AD this is where our story starts around 1800 AD There was a tiny little guy conquering all of Europe and he wanted Egypt as well His name was Napoleon and so as Napoleon's troops are conquering and fighting and all this Napoleon told his men as they were fighting in Egypt because at the time the British and the Ottomans and the French everyone wants this piece of real estate and So including the Egyptians I covered that in my Middle East history class And so anyways, they're all fighting for Egypt and so Napoleon who was a megalomaniac Was also a guy who who really valued ancient stuff and told his men if you see anything that looks old Don't get rid of it. Keep it and so forth. Well as his men are fighting in Egypt some of his men Have to build a fortress for defense and they start on earthing rocks and stones and on one of the stones This is what they find This they find this stone and they see this writing on it And the size of the stone is I've seen it actually it's in the British Museum in England I've seen it several times in person. I would say it's about three feet by five feet I mean smaller than that. It's been a long time since I've seen it in person But what's really cool about it is there's writing on it and there's three styles of writing on it And this is not just any stone. It's called the Rosetta stone So you definitely want to know that term and what you could see on it are the hieroglyphics on the top This other language called the modic in the middle and Greek on the bottom and let me move to the next slide I think I have all the terms there for you Yeah, so these are the same terms to that So you have the hieroglyphics Napoleon and then Rosetta stone, right? And so again, you have the hieroglyphics which you have on the top Demotic is this other form of Egyptian script and then you have the Greek on the bottom now Since there's Greek on the bottom of this what that tells us is that the stone was not made During the archaic period so you got to follow the bouncing ball on this very carefully here, right? So so pay attention what we know about this stone it was made around the year and again You don't need to memorize dates, but it was made around the year 200 BC Around 200 BC. The Greeks were in charge of Egypt Specifically a Greek family known as the Ptolemy family Later on, you know Cleopatra. She comes from that family. And so when the Greeks ruled over this Egyptian civilization one of the rulers decided to write this Decree on this stone and he's Greek. So he writes it in Greek around 200 BC But since he's ruling over Egypt, he's also gonna write it in Demotic and he's gonna write it in hieroglyphics And so what we have is the same thing written in three different languages Well, you know when this stone was discovered around the 1800s AD people knew Greek, right? and so they were able to take the Greek take the hieroglyphics and figure out all the hieroglyphics the person responsible for the Translation is this man named Jean-Francois Champignon there. He was the one who actually Translated it a few decades later actually and so you get the translation So just to be clear on everything, I don't want you to mix up the dates and everything So the stone itself was made about 200 BC. Okay, it was discovered around 1880 right and then shortly after translated but it represents the language on it goes all the way back to 33,000 BC right the hieroglyphics, right? And so it wasn't made It was not made during the archaic period some students mix that up and say it was made during the archaic period. No, no No, the language was around but the stone is what allowed us to translate it And it was really remarkable because if you think about it, the stone was made in 200 BC it had to survive until 1800 AD and had to have all the languages on it for all of this to come together for for this guy to be able To translate it so pretty cool, right? And so that's the Rosetta stone and I definitely want you to know about that and all that story So I hope all that's clear in terms of the time periods and what it what it is All right, so that's the second big thing so the first thing about the archaic period I want you to know is the unification the second big thing about the archaic period I want you to know is the Hieroglyphic the writing. All right a few other things during the archaic period. Let's move on a Few other key points there. The third one is their gods developed. They are polytheistic. So I want you to know that that's number three number four is Mummification began during this time period and this is an image of Anubis. Anubis was the god of mummification for them. So they did started mummification during this time I have a little three-minute video I found off the Getty Website that's really cool. It's a short watch it. It talks about the mummification process and so they developed that The next key thing in the archaic period is they did build pyramids But not the big pyramids right the really really big pyramids. Those are going to be built a bit later During the Old Kingdom, which we'll get to So they built small things called step pyramids during this time and then the last characteristic of the archaic period I want you to know is that they did practice incest and that started during the archaic period and went on Through all of much of Egyptian history actually and when I say incest I'm talking about, you know brothers and sisters and moms and Sons and you go why would they do that? And the answer is to keep the power in the family line So it is something that also seemed to go as far back as the Egyptian archaic period All right. So those are all the key things in the archaic period. So as I mentioned, that's the time period I wanted to spend the most time on and so what I think I'm going to do is I'm going to pause here And we'll do this as kind of the first part of the Egyptian lecture and then we're going to move on in our next set next lecture on part two of the Egyptian lecture and I'm going to go through the rest of the Egyptian time period right just to break it up a little bit. All right, so I hope all that's clear That's part one and we'll get started on part two You could jump right to it or you need a little break take a break and then watch the rest of it But obviously you need to watch all of it. All right, there you go. And I hope that was all clear See you for part two in a bit. Thank you