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I mean broader than just inventions. Like was anything borrowed from ancient Egypt as far as science,mathematics,architecture,government,philos ophy etc?
As expected from any people who lived that long ago, direct influence is probably minimal. However, the beginnings of the study of astronomy probably originated in Egypt. The flooding of the Nile was a critical event each year, and the ability to predict that flooding would have been extremely important. Hence, the beginning of the study of astronomy in the pursuit of an accurate calendar.
The PYRAMIDS are still considered a wonder, taking years to build, preparing blocks for building, working out how many blocks and where to place them for correct load and still leave room for burial chambers and paths to same within the pyramid. Moving and hoisting blocks into place. Evenly spaced, stepped pyramid exterior.
What about the development of writing in the western world?
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The original alphabet was developed by a Semitic people living in or near Egypt. They based it on the idea developed by the Egyptians, but used their own specific symbols.
It was quickly adopted by their neighbors and relatives to the east and north, the Canaanites, the Hebrews, and the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians spread their alphabet to other people of the Near East and Asia Minor, as well as to the Arabs, the Greeks, and the Etruscans, and as far west as present day Spain.
(Thank you for coming into this forum for once and not presenting an Afrocentristic topic.)
Just about everything. I mean they one the luck of the draw in terms of civilization development by having various nomadic tribes centralizing in settling down in one area due to climate changes, they had the benefit of this area being fertile and rich, and they had secure borders because of geography - everything that is needed for a civilization to be stable for a milleneum and thus greatly advance technological wise.
From them we got concepts of mathematics, tools, architecture, navigation and shipbuilding developments, astronomy, irrigation, pottery and glassmaking...these skills were extremely advanced compared to it's neighbors but were spread throughout the developed world of the time via trading and conquest. So in essence, it gave man a badly needed kick-start and forward leap in development.
There "writing" was really just pictures but it also it eventually led to the development of the alphabet after various twists and turns. They also developed "paper" which was just reeds and such but it allowed a written record at the time.
My painful geometry lessons in high school, and later calculus in college, can be directly linked to their mathematical concepts. There architecture designs, picked up later by ancient Greece and Rome, still exists today.
What are some examples of things that we make use of in our modern world that came from ancient Egypt?
The falafel?
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Originally Posted by greatblueheron
Well how about building???
The PYRAMIDS are still considered a wonder, taking years to build, preparing blocks for building, working out how many blocks and where to place them for correct load and still leave room for burial chambers and paths to same within the pyramid. Moving and hoisting blocks into place. Evenly spaced, stepped pyramid exterior.
Science, math, architecture, physics....
No pharaoh has ever been found buried in a pyramid.
No pharaoh will ever be found buried in pyramid, unless a previously unknown pharaoh is discovered in a previously unknown pyramid.
There have been mummies discovered in pyramids, but those are known as "intrusive burials" and they are mainly from the period 600 BCE to 200 CE, long after pyramid building ended.
Colonel Howard-Vyse claimed to have found the partial mummified remains and wooden sarcophagus of Men-ka-ra (Mycenius in Greek), because the cartouche of Men-ka-ra was found painted in red ochre paint on the sarcophagus.
That was proven to be a fraud by the British Museum in the 1990s. Carbon-14 dating, and later tests, proved that the mummy was from the Coptic Period, and the wooden sarcophagus from the Saitic Period.
Colonel Howard-Vyse painted the cartouche of Men-ka-ra using red ochre paint on the sarcophagus himself.
The only "evidence" that Khufu built the Great Pyramid is the alleged cartouche of Khufu painted in red ochre paint on the top chamber of the Great Pyramid.
That was painted by Colonel Howard-Vyse, too.
The proper rendering of the hieroglyphs painted by Colonel Howard-Vyse are actually of a pharaoh who lived several centuries after Khufu.
Colonel Howard-Vyse was copying the hieroglyphs out of book about Egyptian hieroglyphs that used very poor quality lithographs, and he totally messed up three of symbols. The most obvious one he messed up is confusing a circle with a circle with a dot in the center.
One is a symbol for the deity Ra, and the other phonetic character. No Egyptian scribe trained in writing would commit such a heresy using the symbol for Ra.
When archeologists from the University of Pennsylvania excavated the step pyramid built by Sneferu, who was Khufu's father, they were completely baffled. It was a step pyramid encased with mud-baked bricks that had been painted white. The mud-baked bricks eventually collapsed into a big pile of rubble at the base of the pyramid (and that's what you actually see in photos).
Interestingly, the Great Pyramid was originally encased in highly polished White Tura Limestone, before the Arabs carted it away to build their mosque on the Temple Mount and other buildings in and around Cairo.
The albedo of the White Tura Limestone was such that during a Full Moon, you could have seen the Great Pyramid from the horizon at night.
Why did Sneferu have those mud-baked bricks painted white?
Because he was trying to copy something that already existed: the Great Pyramid.
So, no, Khufu didn't build the Great Pyramid, but he says he did make repairs to it, probably replacing some of the broken White Tura Limestone, and he says so on a stela.
And there's nothing of science, math or physics originating from the Egyptians.
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Originally Posted by Dd714
From them we got concepts of mathematics, tools, architecture, navigation and shipbuilding developments, astronomy, irrigation, pottery and glassmaking...these skills were extremely advanced compared to it's neighbors but were spread throughout the developed world of the time via trading and conquest. So in essence, it gave man a badly needed kick-start and forward leap in development.
No, concepts of math, tools, architecture, navigation and ship-building, astronomy, irrigation, pottery and glass-making all came from Sumer one or more millennia before Egypt existed.
It was the Sumerians who discovered precession of the equinox, identified the planets and developed mathematical tables to predict their orbits including periods of retrogradation, created and named the twelve constellations on the equator, the twelve constellations in the northern hemisphere and more importantly, the twelve constellations in the southern hemisphere, which are not visible from the Middle East, so they only way they could know that is if they traveled south at least as far as present-day Zambia.
It was the Sumerians who developed the Base 60 number system, which gives us 2 twelve hour periods in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, 60 seconds in a minute, the 360° circle and so on.
It was also the Sumerians who gave the Egyptians their mythology and pantheon of twelve deities.
The only thing the Egyptians have given the World is the falafel.
No, concepts of math, tools, architecture, navigation and ship-building, astronomy, irrigation, pottery and glass-making all came from Sumer one or more millennia before Egypt existed.
It was the Sumerians who discovered precession of the equinox, identified the planets and developed mathematical tables to predict their orbits including periods of retrogradation, created and named the twelve constellations on the equator, the twelve constellations in the northern hemisphere and more importantly, the twelve constellations in the southern hemisphere, which are not visible from the Middle East, so they only way they could know that is if they traveled south at least as far as present-day Zambia.
It was the Sumerians who developed the Base 60 number system, which gives us 2 twelve hour periods in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, 60 seconds in a minute, the 360° circle and so on.
It was also the Sumerians who gave the Egyptians their mythology and pantheon of twelve deities.
The only thing the Egyptians have given the World is the falafel.
The question wasn't who came first so who cares. However, there are still debates on what came first - Egypt or Sumer. Probably Sumer but it's debatable. And even so, Egypt became more centrally organized much sooner. Certainly both developed advanced civilization, but they did so independently, at least at first, and then later some sharing of knowledge and technology via trade.
But the fact remains that Ancient Greece was primarily influenced from Ancient Egypt, not Sumer, and Ancient Greece is essentially seen as the father of Western Civilization (in Greece influenced Rome, Rome influenced the rest of Europe, Europe colonized and influenced the New World, etc.), so.....
When it comes to ancient civilizations, there really is no certainty in determining timing, the direction of who influenced whom first, etc., especially when it comes to mathematics, ideologies, writing, but one could mention in one swoop India, Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the northwestern (eastern Mediterranean) Semitic cultures ... ... followed by Greece (Macedonians for a period governed from India to Sicily) ... ... ... ... ... and ... last ... last ... last ... Rome.
At any rate, in terms of water management, my understanding is that the Sumerians had to learn to control frequent flooding of rivers in a very fertile area close to mountains, while the Egyptians had to learn to conserve water from a river, surrounded by desert, that flooded once a year.
It's probably more nuanced than that over thousands of years, but in both cases, water management (food production) is a big deal: Egypt not only fed itself in the millions, it was a major source of food supply to the eastern and central Mediterranean for millennia.
No one knows for sure when the pyramids and temples were built and why exactly, but they are certainly monumental in terms of architecture, art and pictographicwriting, as well as mummification.
Papyrus was a major writing medium for centuries, if not millennia. Though my understanding is that most of the extant papyrus documents are in Greek from the Hellenistic and Roman periods, mainly in Greek, some in Coptic (basically hellenized Egyptian).
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What are some examples of things that we make use of in our modern world that came from ancient Egypt?
It is debatable to what extent any of the foregoing is relevant to the industrial era.
I know that's what you are asking us to do, but these types of debates can get ugly quickly.
* Heaven, Hell, Resurrection, and the Last Judgment (Osiris = Christ).
* Satan (the god Set).
* Condoms.
* Glass making and faience.
* Door locks (and keys).
* Breath mints.
* Sailing.
* Lighthouses.
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