Ancient Egypt Essays - Ancient Egyptian Mummies, Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt Between 3100 and 332 B.C was the rise and climax of one of the richest and oldest ancient civilizations. It's lifeline was the Nile river in the Nile valley. Here, Egyptian dynasties ruled from the first cataract of the Nile to the Mediterranean Sea. At the it's height it ruled an empire that reached from Syria in the east to Nubia in the south. In this report I will be covering the Archaic Period, the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom the New Kingdom and The Late Period or 3100-332 B.C. Archaic Period: 3100 B.C to 2750 B.C There long history began with there first King who began the first Egyptian dynasty. In 3100 B.C Pharaoh Menes united upper and lower Egypt. Making Egypt's first empire. In doing so, he made the Egyptian double crown. It was made by putting the red crown of Lower Egypt on top of the white crown of upper Egypt. Menes ruled from the ancient city of Thinis near Abydos. Under his reign the first hieroglyphic writing was made. He is also credited with making his empire interdependent. Old Kingdom: 2750 B.C to 2181 B.C / First Intermediate Period: 2182-2260 Little is known about Menes successors until the reign of Zoser at the end of the 3rd dynasty. His capital was located at Memphis on the Nile's west bank. He built the world's first pyramid and the first building of that size to be entirely made of stone. Even though it was a pyramid it wasn't a true pyramid, but a step pyramid. After the reign of the last king of the Sixth dynasty (the last dynasty in the old kingdom.) Pepi II in 2181 B.C, there was a period of crisis and social upheaval known as the First Intermediate Period. The reasons leading up to this dark time, was a series of low floods and the result was famine during the Sixth dynasty. This undermined the stability of Egypt and provoked rebellion. What followed put Egypt in rapid decline. With no central power the provinces became independent states the were often at war with each other. To make the situation worse was a penetration of nomadic foreigners into the delta region of the Nile Valley. Middle Kingdom: 2061-1784 B.C/Second Intermediate Period 1633-1570 B.C The accession in 2060 B.C. of Mentuhotep II of Thebes the first pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom, ended 90 years of conflict with a dynasty established a Herakleopolis, south of Memphis. This strong Eleventh Dynasty ruler restored order in Egypt. He drove the Asiatics from the delta and campaigned against the Libyans and nomadic tribes in the Sinai and the eastern desert. Trade also expanded to Nubia, Syria and Palestine under his reign. Mentuhotep II reigned for 50 years and was buried at Deir el-Bahri. Under the reign of Sesostris II (1897-1878 B.C) huge irrigation works were built at the oasis at Faiyum. Sesostris III (1878-1843) expanded Egypt's southern border to the second cataract. At such times of powerful rulers, Egypt was governed by an efficient administration. Taxation provided much of the wealth and was carefully organized. A census of fields and of all cattle was taken every two years. In addition to tax calculation and collection, another important official function was the building up reserves of grain stocks to prevent famine after a bad harvest. The state controlled all foreign trade and owned the mines and quarries. After the end of the Thirteenth Dynasty in 1633 B.C Egypt fell into another period of decline known as the second intermediate period. During this period Egypt was divided into four areas: the southern area ruled by 17th dynasty Theban rulers, the central area that owed allegiance to Thebes, the 15th and 16th dynasties or the Hyksos that ruled most of the delta and the 14th dynasty that ruled a small are in the delta. The Hyksos identity is not known and there was no evidence that they invaded Egypt. This suggest that there takeover was peaceful as a result of their increased population in the delta. During the middle kingdom the Hyksos were employed by the state of Egypt to mine in the Sinai mines and in Egypt itself. Later their population in the delta was so large that it was larger than the Egyptian population the delta, so this was the probable cause of there takeover. The Hyksos rule over Egypt was very unpopular with the people of Egypt and according to tradition Hyksos were an anarchy, who were accused of

WeberDurkheimMarx and how they account for religion essays

WeberDurkheimMarx and how they account for religion essays How do we account for religion - its origin, its development, and even its persistence in modern society? This is a question which has occupied many people in a variety of fields for quite a long time. At one point, the answers were framed in purely theological and religious terms, assuming the truth of Christian revelations and proceeding from there. In the 18th and 19th centuries, a more naturalistic approach developed. Instead of needing to believe in the truth of the religion, what was required was just the opposite: intellectual detachment and a suspension of belief. Three people who ended up doing just that were Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Marx studied philosophy in Berlin under William Hegel. Hegel's philosophy had a decisive influence upon Marx's own thinking and theories. According to Marx, religion is an expression of material realities and economic injustice. Thus, problems in religion are ultimately problems in society. Religion is not the disease, but merely a symptom. It is used by oppressors to make people feel better about the distress they experience due to being poor and exploited. This is the origin of his comment that religion is the "opium of the people." People do not have an objective view of the world; they see it from the restricted point of view of their own positions.(p.35) At times I may seem to be focusing more on economic rather than religious theory, but that is because Marx's basic stance is that everything is always about economics. According to Marx, humans - even from their earliest beginnings - are not motivated by grand ideas but instead by material concerns, like the need to eat and survive. This is the basic premise of a materialist view of history. At the beginning, people worked together in unity and it wasn't so bad. But eventually, humans developed agriculture and the concept of private property. These two facts created a division of labor and a s...

Cowboy Proxemics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Cowboy Proxemics - Essay Example Hickey and William E. Thompson further studied the role of proxemics in American cowboy population and how it differed from the usual American standards. Hickey and Thompson argued that a lot of proliferation has taken from cowboy culture to the mainstream American culture. Today, some aspects of cowboy culture are clearly known. For instance, media has popularized the garb worn by cowboys, that it is frequently copied by members of other cultures and occupations. Hence, for a cowboy one of the ways he found to preserve his identity was by preserving his notions of personal space. Hall proposed that for Americans there are four kinds of proxemically relevant personal spaces. They are: intimate zone ranging from zero to eighteen inches for loved ones, personal zone ranging from one and one half to four inches, social zone ranging from four to twelve feet while public space was anything over twelve feet. Among cowboys, on the other hand, those who do no know each other well, the usual speaking distance is six to eight feet. The ways people use space differs from culture to culture and subculture to subculture. This is so because proxemic research is based on the concept of territoriality or the behavior by which an organism typically lays claim to an area and defends it against members of its own and other species. This is basis of study of animal behavior. Non-verbal communication or process of transmitting messages also plays role in the study of proxemics (Ottenheimer Harriet, 157). It comprises of body language, gestures, facial expressions and even gaze. While Americans believe in maintaining an eye-contact during the course of a conversation, the cowboys neither stares not scan the eye of the partner in a regular manner. Since proxemics is in a way study of culture anthropologists have argued that intercultural communication, occupation, cultivation, preservation and utilization of space is also taken into consideration and this could be the reason for differences between subcultures of the same culture. Harriet Joseph Ottenheimer in her book, the Anthropology of Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology states that as cowboys were frequently seated in horses there developed differences in their need for personal spaces. Thus, for them personal space ranges from six to eight feet roughly this is the space they need if two horses were standing nose-to-nose. However, their side-by-side personal space ranges from zero to eighteen inches, suggesting that if their horses are side by side their feet might touch. Famous adage goes-old habits die hard. Anthropologists argue that as cowboys spent most of their time on their horses, they carried the same proxemics system in non-mounted situations as well. So cowboys at social gatherings like a campfire tend to place themselves facing each other across the room and make sure they are six to eight feet apart also while placing themselves side by side close together on one side of the room. In Kansas, pickup trucks pulled off the road are parked side by side while their drivers can have a chat while seated on the trucks. As we are living in global village, cowboy proxemics will go through a change due to influences from other cultures and subcultures. As proxemics is part of culture and is guided by culture transmission, anthropologists h