1. Chapter 4
Ancient Egypt

2. Lesson 1 Notes What is the Nile River?
It’s the longest river in the world (4132 miles)
It runs North from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean Sea
Every year, in ancient times, it flooded and deposited fertile silt in the river valley
The river was very important to farmers because they needed it to irrigate their fields
Farmers dug canals and used a shadouf to water their crops

3. What is a shadouf?

4. Lesson 2 Notes Land of the Pharaohs
Pharaohs are the supreme rulers of Ancient Egypt
Menes was the first pharaoh ever
He unified Upper and Lower Egypt in 3100 b.c.
To show this, he began to wear the double crown
Lower
Double
Upper

5. Lesson 2 Notes Role of the Pharaoh
All of their actions shaped the fate of Egypt
The pharaoh was in charge of government, religion, and economy
Because the pharaoh was believed to be a god, all things belonged to them
The pharaoh gave land to government officials and traded food & clothing for objects people made

6. Hieroglyphics What are hieroglyphics?
This system of writing was developed in Egypt to keep track of taxes
Scribes were the main writers and wrote important documents on a paper called papyrus
We were able to discover what the hieroglyphics meant when Champollion cracked the code of the Rosetta Stone

7. Hieroglyphics

8. Pyramids What is a pyramid?
Pyramids are large stone structures that serve as tombs for the pharaohs
The Great Pyramid was built for Khufu
The pyramid was the Old Kingdom’s most spectacular monument
Because so many pharaohs built pyramids, which was hard on the economy, Egypt was divided again
At the end of the Old Kingdom the capital of Egypt was moved from Memphis to Thebes

9. Lesson 3 Notes Middle Kingdom
During this time period, the Egyptians had contact with other parts of the world
Also during this time, the Hyksos invaded and took over control of the delta region or Lower Egypt
They introduced chariots and bronze weapons to the Egyptians
A pharaoh named Ahmose eventually defeated the Hyksos and unified Egypt again
This ended the Middle Kingdom and started the New Kingdom

10. Lesson 3 Notes New Kingdom
During this time period, Egypt began to grow into an empire
The Egyptians took over land in Nubia and present day Israel
This resulted in more trade with other nations
Egypt’s only major female pharaoh, Hatshepsut, organized one of the biggest trade expeditions to a land called Punt
During this time period, the Egyptians made huge advances in medicine, math, and science

11. Lesson 4 Notes Daily Life in Ancient Egypt
Society was broken into different classes
To show how society was broken down, we’ve created a diagram to show where people ranked called the Egyptian Social Pyramid
Pharaoh
Government Officials
Soldiers
Scribes
Merchants
Artisans
Farmers
Slaves

12. Study Guide What to study? The 5 major pharaohs and what they did
The role of the pharaohs
The importance of hieroglyphics
What happened in each kingdom
Understand the geography of Ancient Egypt
- Upper and Lower Egypt
- The Nile River
- Where the best farming was located