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Old 04-06-2019, 05:39 PM
 
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Here's something on the workers who built Egypt.


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Old 04-06-2019, 07:36 PM
 
Location: Capital Region, NY
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Written records and language. The use of manipulating facts and figures, e.g, mathematics. Only possible with a prosperous civilization with relatively peaceful periods over time.

Ancient civilizations fascinate me. I often wonder just how far back they actually go. Recorded history is not the beginning.
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Old 04-06-2019, 10:05 PM
 
Location: Independent Republic of Ballard
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Agricultural societies seldom grow rich from farming alone - building wealth requires trade. The Naqada culture of Upper Egypt was able to control trade, along the Nile, with Nubia, the Red Sea, etc. Similarly, the Ma'adi culture in Lower Egypt was able to control trade with the Nile Delta and the Fertile Crescent, until it was sacked, probably by raiders from Upper Egypt.
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Old 04-07-2019, 03:40 PM
 
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Don't forget the domestication of the cat. Otherwise, the grain stores would have been depleted by rodents. (The cat haters will have a hissy over this.)
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Old 04-07-2019, 09:39 PM
 
Location: Tijuana Exurbs
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Let's add relatively defensible borders. The deserts protected them on the west, the Red Sea on the east, except for the Sinai, and the Mediterranean on the north, except when the Sea Peoples attacked ca. 1177 BC.

Also, I agree with the poster who added trade to the list. The Nile enhanced their north-south trade position, while the Sinai helped by funnelling east-west sea trade through Egypt. The Sinai minimized the distance goods had to be transported by land.
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Old 04-07-2019, 10:33 PM
 
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What ideas and technology did Egypt borrow from other cultures that enhanced theirs?
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Old 04-10-2019, 09:59 AM
 
Location: Southern MN
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I'll add excellent building material to the list of factors.
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Old 04-10-2019, 10:33 AM
 
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Egypt (as there was no Egypt back then, country was called differently) acquired the knowledge, necessary for what you refer to, OP, from previous highly developed civilization. Inherited it, basically. There are plenty of fertile areas in the world, where you can rip two harvests a year or literally do nothing and not go hungry, yet they never developed anything of any significance intellectually. As development is based in intellectual development, not in how much food land produces. As example, plenty of developed cultures, say, in Latin Americas, that lived in pretty much desert yet, have accomplishments akin to those of Egypt.
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Old 04-10-2019, 11:01 AM
 
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OP you are asking about 3,000 years of development of course, which is difficult to pin down. You can go back another 3,000 years if you want to get into prehistoric Egypt.
The best answer to Ancient Egypts success was winning the geographical lottery. You had an extremely fertile valley, you had a ready made of civilization of wandering nomads willing to settle there when North Africa turned to desert, you had defensible borders, you had a trade route along the Med.

OP you asked what ideas and technology were learned from other cultures? Well even in ancient times you had trade and wandering tribes that traveled vast differences over perhaps generations. Later on during the dynasties of course trade and communication became more sophisticated. Trade grew particularly around the Med. A few elements that cannot be attributed to Egypt development, from memory, forging of steel and chariots. Egypt was still using bronze but gained steel from the near east, Chariots which are almost an Egyptian icon actually came from the horse cultures of what is now Russia.

However, people nowadays do not realize how sophisticated these cultures are, what knowledge and skills they possessed, This is evident in the lavish monuments they constructed including the pyramids which a few idiots ("pyramidiots") still cannot reconcile to ancient civilizations and attribute to otherworldy sources. They knew complex math formulas and used it in construction projects, they knew geography, they knew aerodymanics (in terms of shipbuilding), they knew astronomy. They were sophisticated and organized - they composed versions of gantt charts. They knew agriculture and developed complex canals for irrigation. Some of this was learned from other civilizations, much of it was improved upon. I can go on and on.
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Old 04-10-2019, 01:49 PM
 
Location: Denver, CO
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Motion View Post
What ideas and technology did Egypt borrow from other cultures that enhanced theirs?
The wheel, mathematics and astronomy, among others.
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