Egypt Review: Final Project

Cleopatra:

Antony married Octavia, but did not actually love her and it wasn’t after long before his thoughts turned to Cleopatra again.  Antony treated Octavia with the greatest of respect because she was the sister of his rival. He knew that Cleopatra was the richest woman in the world, and because he was the feather to her twins, she gave him much gold and silver to pay his soldiers. I learned that Antony issued a large number of silver coins designed to show the world that he and Cleopatra were a powerful couple, on one side of the coin was a portrait of Antony, and on the other side was Cleopatra. Antony gave Cleopatra beautiful treasures that money could not buy, like the Cyprus which he gave back to Cleopatra to restore Egyptians rule. I learned that serpent rings, coiled snake rings and hawk headed earrings were some of the most famous Egyptians jewelry. Antony and Cleopatra were officially married and the Egyptians supported her a lot and so did the Romans, she made peace with both countries.

 

 

The afterlife:

 

Egyptians believed that if you lived a good life you would be rewarded in the afterlife, you would live with Osiris the God of Death, in the field of Reeds. I learned that at first, the Egyptians thought that only a Pharaoh could leave the tomb and travel to live with Osiris in the Field of Reeds, but then these ideas changed and the people started to believe that if the living celebrated your death ceremonially, then you could have the right of passage to the afterlife.  Mourners gathered at the homes of the deceased to begin the long procession of the tomb. They dragged the mummy over land on a wooden sled, and then crossed the river by barge.

 

Egypt discoveries:

In history today I learned about the discovering of the Egyptians past: The Rosette Stone was discovered 1799 by a French Soldier. The Rosetta stone was the key that enabled scholars to read the meanings of the hieroglyphs.  In 1816, Giovanni Belzoni began collecting pieces of the Rosetta stone for the British Museum. And then in 1822, Linguist Jean-Francois Champollion decoded the hieroglyphic script. In 1880 Flinders Pertie started to survey the Great Pyramid. In 1922, Howard carter discovered King Tut’s tomb.  In 1939, Pierre Montet discovered the royal tombs at Tanis.  In 1992, the underwater survey of Ancient Alexandria began. In the 1990’s Cat scans and DNA samples of mummies became possible. In 1858 National Antiquities of Egypt was set up.

 

Egyptian math:

I learned that Early on in Egypt, the Egyptians discovered that a triangle measuring 3, 4, 5 or 5, 12, 13 always included a right angle. Surveyors would lay out knotted ropes in a straight line and by sighting a right angles and constructing an imaginary triangle, they could determine distances.

Egyptians measured the area of irregularly shaped fields by dividing it into triangles, and then adding all the triangles together.  Egyptians even knew basic Algebra, Archeologists have discovered Egyptian Scrolls containing problems with unknown answers. Egyptians used math to keep track of how much grain they produced. I learned that 10 is presented as a head in hieroglyphics and 1 I.  100 is represented as a coiled rope and has 2 I’s. 1,000 is represented as a flower and has 3 III’s.

Egyptian science:

The Egyptians earliest calendar was based on the phases of the moon. Early Egyptians measured time by the most obvious change in their lives, the flooding of the Nile. Before long, Egyptians turned to astronomy, they learned that in just 29 ½ days the moon grows until it is a full round circle and then shrinks and disappears completely. Each time a new moon appeared, Egyptians began a new month. Twelve months were counted as one year, An Egyptian moon year had 354 days. I learned that the Egyptians predicted the flooding of the Nile by watching Sirius, a bright star that cycle was 365 days around the earth, the length of a year, Sirius always appeared a day before the flooding of the Nile so that helped the Egyptians a lot. The Egyptians subdivided their years into 12 months each 30 days, and the other 5 ½ days were for sacred holidays. According to myth, Thoth, the god of wisdom, won some of the moons light in a dice game.