The process of the origin of ancient countries in the two river basins began with the agricultural revolution and human settlement. In Catal Hüyük, Anatolia Plateau, the earliest remains of human settlements in 9000 BC were discovered. When people settled down, agricultural production became the most important way of life. Because of the differences in sowing period, growing period and harvest period in agricultural production, in the early stage of agricultural production, primitive lifestyles such as hunting and gathering were still the main production departments, and agriculture was probably the auxiliary production department at that time. Products obtained from agricultural production only become the main source of life in the harvest season. The same is true of animal husbandry. Hunting and gathering still play an important role in the process of raising livestock. The discovery of Chatahuyu proved that mankind had passed this stage at that time, and agriculture and animal husbandry had become the main production department.
The same situation was found in many places along the Euphrates River. At the same time, with the progress of agriculture and animal husbandry, handicraft industry has gradually become the main content of production and life. In the ruins of Hassouna, Samarra and khalaf, pottery is the symbol of each region and its period. Moreover, in this development process, the cultural center gradually moved south. Around 4500 BC, Obeid, the southernmost tip of the alluvial plain in the two river basins, became the representative of a new era, and the city as the national carrier of the ancient two river basins was born during this period. Since human beings began to settle down, the process of urbanization has begun.
In 7000 BC, in West Asia, the level of agricultural development improved rapidly, agricultural products could meet the needs of thousands of people, and the living density increased day by day. The resident population developed from the initial village to the early small town. The earliest settlements were Jericho in northern Syria and Chata Huyu in southern Anatolia Plateau. The scale of these two settlements is only slightly larger than that of large villages or small towns of the same era. Some scholars believe that Jericho's solid walls and defense system prove that it has developed into a city, but it is not the center of a life system, so it should be regarded as a pre-urban life form.
The development of early towns concentrated in areas with developed natural agriculture. For example, Jericho, located near the Jordan River, was the main farming area of early natural agriculture, and its abundant water and rainfall made it the earliest place for human settlement. In 7000 BC, the settlement area of Jericho had exceeded 10 acre. Jericho's agricultural economy depends on barley and wheat cultivation; Raising livestock, mainly sheep, and supplying meat and milk; Hunting is still the main economic sector, and sheep hunting and various wetland birds supply the demand for meat and fur. Chattahoe is located in southern Turkey, just behind Jericho. Archaeological findings prove that Chattahoe's economy is more diversified than Jericho's. Agriculture is the most important production sector, and hunting still occupies an important position. The scale and variety of animal husbandry are far greater than that of Jericho. The food structure of residents is very rich, including all kinds of grains, beans, berries, fruit wine, vegetable oil and so on. The traffic in these two areas is equally developed, and the surrounding areas are also rich in resources, so trade has existed for a long time and is one of the main production departments. There are salt, sulfur and asphalt producing areas near Jericho, which are the main cash crops and commodities. Jericho's agricultural products were exchanged for obsidian from Anatolia, turquoise from Sinai and shells from the Red Sea. Chattahoe's trade is more extensive. Residents here not only exchange products with residents in the surrounding mountainous areas, but also expand to Syria and the Mediterranean. Its trading system is intermittent, unstable and discontinuous. Therefore, Chattahoe's influence did not continue to expand, which may be one of the reasons for its decline around 4500 BC. Chattahoe is also an important handicraft center. Firestone and obsidian weapons, jewelry and obsidian mirrors found in tombs are the most exquisite products in the Neolithic Age, which proves that material civilization has developed during this period.
With the continuous expansion of settlement scale, the shape and scale of houses are constantly changing, and specialized religious buildings and facilities and urban defense facilities begin to appear. Soon, small religious building facilities appeared, and a large number of figurines and animal sculptures were used in certain religious ceremonies. In addition, local residents have carved statues and heads as high as people, which may be used to worship their ancestors.
In the heyday of the development of Jericho and Chata, in the upper reaches of the two river basins, small groups of residents made a living by gathering and hunting, and their mobile life changed into settled life, forming early settlements. The early settlements were scattered and isolated, mainly concentrated in the canyons in the northern part of the two river basins.
In the 3rd century BC, Manieto divided the history of Egypt's conquest from menes to Macedonian Alexandria into thirty (or thirty-one) dynasties. Now scholars have divided the history of ancient Egypt into the following periods:
1, pre-dynasty period (about 3 100-2686 BC)
2. Early Dynasty (about 2686-2 18 1 year ago)
3. Ancient Dynasty (about 2 18 1-2040)
4. the first intermediate period (about 2040- 1786 BC)
5. The Middle Ages (about BC 1786- 1567)
6. The second intermediate period; (approximately 1786- 1567)
7. the new dynasty (about BC 1567- 1085)
8. Post-dynasty period (about BC 1085-332)
9. The Rule of Greeks and Romans in Macedonia (332 BC-642 AD)
1 4, which is the period of the formation of slave countries and the emergence of the unified dynasty; The 5-7 period is the reconstruction period of the unified kingdom and empire; The eighth and ninth periods saw the decline and foreign domination of Egypt, a slave country.
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Experts actually explored the time range of ancient Egyptian culture, that is, the first union of the northern and southern kingdoms of Egypt in 4245 BC. By 332 AD, Alexander of Macedonia occupied Egypt, and the Ptolemy dynasty was destroyed, which is commonly known as the Pharaoh dynasty that lasted for more than 3,000 years.
Ancient Egyptian characters
The evolution of ancient Egyptian characters can be divided into four stages: 1, hieroglyphics: the earliest ancient Egyptian writing material we know is hieroglyphics, which was produced in 3000 BC. 2. Tribute: For practicality and convenience, the scribe simplified the symbol shape of hieroglyphics and created a memorial. 3. Secular writing: it is a cursive form of sacrificial writing. Compared with sacrificial scripts, secular scripts have simpler link forms and no picture features, and the writing direction retains the tradition of sacrificial scripts. Fixed from right to left. 4. Coptic writing: It is the last stage of the development of ancient Egyptian writing, deeply influenced by Greek and biblical literature. Egyptian characters are composed of ideographic symbols, phonetic symbols and qualifying symbols.
Ideographic symbols are used to express the meaning of words, which is characterized by the close relationship between graphics and the meaning of words. For example, drawing wavy lines represents water, and drawing a five-pointed star represents the concept of "star".
Phonetic symbols are used to express the pronunciation of words and obtain sound values. For example, if the figure of an owl is used as a note, the pronunciation [m] has lost the meaning of "owl". The graphic symbol representing the bolt represents the sound, and another symbol representing the hillside is used to represent the sound [k].
Qualifier is a new graphic symbol, which is purely ideographic and placed at the end of a word to indicate which category the word belongs to. The qualifier itself is not pronounced. For example, the notes of the words "plow stick" and "Zhu Diao" in hieroglyphics are exactly the same, both of which are composed of two consonants, pronounced hb. The way to distinguish the meaning of words is to add the limiting symbols representing "plough stick" and "Zhu Diao" after hb respectively. A complete sentence can be formed by properly combining ideographic symbols, phonetic symbols and qualifying symbols.
Religion in ancient Egypt
Religion is the most important part of ancient Egyptian culture, which runs through the whole history of ancient Egypt. There are four most important religious centers in ancient Egypt: Heliopolis, Memphis, Hermes and Thebes.
1. The relationship between God and man
The relationship between ancient Egyptians and gods can be summarized as follows: the gods warned people what to do and what not to do; There is evil in the world because people go against God's will. Evil will be rewarded, and good will be rewarded. The ancient Egyptians believed that God's guidance was realized through the tongue and mind. Because the heart is the organ that makes decisions and plans, and the tongue makes decisions and plans public. These two organs play a decisive role in human behavior. Kidney is the guide of these two organs, so he is the helmsman of life.
2. the theory of creating the universe
The ancient Egyptians believed that the world had no beginning and no end, and the world was in chaos. After the creation and rectification of the creator, the world began to exist. The ancient Egyptians believed that everything would go round and round and the world would never change. The ancient Egyptians' view of time naturally focused on the future, because the endless world was waiting for them to enjoy.
3. The afterlife theory
The ancient Egyptians believed that life is alive, which mainly depends on two elements: one is the visible human body, and the other is the invisible soul. The shape of the soul "Ba" is a bird with a head and hands. After death, Ba is free to fly away from the body. But the body is still the basis of Pakistan's dependence. To this end, a series of complicated ceremonies should be held for the deceased, so that his various organs can play a role again, and the mummy can be resurrected and continue to live in the afterlife. The dead need a stable place to live in the afterlife. The pyramids of the ancient kingdom and the tombs dug on the hillside by the middle kingdom and the new kingdom are the permanent residences of the dead. The ancient Egyptians believed that the world was short and the afterlife was eternal.
Weights and measures in ancient Egypt
The most important unit of length in ancient Egypt was the wrist ruler, which was about 20.62 inches from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. In hieroglyphics, it is represented by forearm and hand, which is pronounced meh. The wrist ruler is divided into 7 palms or 28 fingers, each palm is equal to 4 fingers. A square with a length of one cubit and a diagonal of half (29. 16 inch) is called Leimen, which can be divided into 20 fingers. It is the second unit of length and the main unit for measuring land. There is also a wrist ruler, only 17.72 inches, divided into 6 palms. The product of wrist ruler multiplied by 100 is called Arabic tea, which is the basic unit for measuring land. The square of this length, that is, 10000 square elbow, is also the unit of cultivated land area.
The main capacity unit of ancient Egyptians was Hanu, which was 29.0 0.3 cubic inches, and 65,438+00 Hanu was Hagardt. On the basis of quality classification, various multiplication operations are carried out to form a larger particle volume unit. Another unit of capacity is the card, which is equal to 2/3 cubic cubits, or equivalent to the capacity of a container with a diameter of 9 palms and a depth of 1 elbow. There is a certain approximate relationship between capacity and water, because a Hanu's water weighs 5 debens. It seems that the unit of capacity is derived from the unit of weight of water. Deben is the weight of an ankle ornament with the same name, and its110 is called Gardet, which is the weight of the ring.
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Mummies are well-preserved bodies after special treatment. In more than 3000 years, many changes have taken place in the way ancient Egyptians made mummies. However, most scholars and experts believe that the anti-corrosion method reached its peak around 10 century BC. At that time, the first-class embalmers gathered together to make mummies according to the following steps: first, a 10 cm long incision was made on the left side of the abdomen of the corpse with a flint knife, and all the internal organs except the heart were taken out from the incision (the embalmer and his customers thought that the heart was the root of feelings), and they were washed one by one with wine and spices containing myrrh and cinnamon. The embalmer also washed the abdominal cavity of the corpse with aromatic asphalt to decompose the residual soft tissue, and then prepared to take the brain. He used a hooked tool to penetrate into the skull from the nostril of the deceased, hooked off the brain marrow inside, and then poured aromatic asphalt and spices to rush out the residual tissue in the skull.
After every part of the body was thoroughly cleaned, the embalmer buried all organs and corpses in a pile of powder soaked in alkali (a mixture of sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate) to drain water. Bodies and organs should be buried in alkaline powder for about a month. After taking out, each part should be washed with perfume and spices. Every step of embalming the corpse from beginning to end, the embalming personnel must be serious, such as wrapping every finger of the corpse from the beginning to avoid nail damage or falling off.
Then, the antiseptic wrapped the dry viscera one by one with linen, put them back into the abdominal cavity (or put them in a clay pot or gypsum pot alone) and filled the abdominal cavity with fillers such as sawdust, linen, tar or mud. After filling, the incision will be stitched immediately. Because soaking alkali has damaged some hair, it is necessary to repair some wigs and braid them with real hair that has not been taken off; I also need an artificial eye in my eye socket. At this time, the remaining work is to restore the appearance of the body, which is also the most time-consuming, because it is not easy to restore the withered body to its original appearance. During this ancient plastic surgery, the embalmer carefully cut many tiny incisions in various parts of the body and filled the skin with linen fillers shaped according to the body contour, just like plastic surgeons injected silicone into the living in the 20th century. Even the face and neck of the corpse are as good as before, and the mouth is stuffed with linen to make the cheeks full. Finally, the antiseptic also acts as a makeup artist, using a colored clay called ochre to color the face and even the whole body of the deceased (the male deceased is dyed red and the female deceased is dyed yellow). You can wrap your body after dyeing. The embalmer wrapped the limbs of the corpse layer by layer with linen cloth coated with rosin, then wrapped the head and trunk, and finally wrapped the whole body. This parcel is slow and time-consuming. Now several mummies have been untied, and the total length of the cloth is more than two kilometers! The embalmer wrapped the body and made it into a mummy, which took about 70 days before and after. Follow the embalmer to return the mummy to undertaker. By this time, undertaker had probably prepared another human coffin to hold the mummy and built a grave.
The whole mummification process is expensive, except for various drugs, spices, evil spirits, amulets and so on. , only wrapped in a corpse, sometimes with 1000 meters of high quality linen. Therefore, only kings, royalty, nobles and the rich can afford it, and the poor can only be simple and even sloppy. Herodotus talked about two other cheaper mummification methods. Although it is difficult to ensure physical integrity, it can give spiritual comfort to the poor. Moreover, perhaps it is because of these cheap mummification methods that the tradition of mummification can be spread and continued. It was not until the 4th century AD that Christianity ruled Egypt that the custom of mummies was abolished.
There was a group of people in ancient Egypt who made mummies as their profession. They have mastered this technology and passed it on from generation to generation. In ancient Egypt, mummification and related necessities undoubtedly formed a very important and large-scale industrial system. The existence of this industry shows that ancient Egyptians have mastered scientific knowledge in physics, chemistry and medicine. The sodium oxide they used as a desiccant was a mixture of sodium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate, salt and sodium sulfide according to modern scientific analysis, indicating that the chemical action of these substances was known at that time.
Developed ancient Egyptian astronomy
In the Nile valley of Africa, there is a prosperous ancient Egyptian civilization. The work of observing the sky in Egypt was originally done by monks, who paid attention to the movement of the sun, the moon and the stars, and knew the method of predicting solar and lunar eclipses from very ancient times. Unfortunately, this method is strictly confidential and the details are unknown.
The ancient Egyptians made their own calendars. Marx said: "The need to calculate the fluctuation cycle of Nile water gave birth to astronomy in Egypt." In other words, the knowledge of astronomy comes from the observation of nature. Every June, the Nile floods and the fertile soil is washed away from the upper reaches, so that crops can thrive. Thus, the Egyptians produced the concept of "season".
The calendar of ancient Egypt was obtained by observing Canis Canis. Canis Canis is called Sirius in China and Sobud in ancient Egypt, which means the star on the water. As mentioned above, the civilization of ancient Egypt is closely related to the flood of the Nile. They found that while the Nile rose in the delta, the sun and Sirius also rose on the horizon. They set the time between these two events as one year, a total of 365 days. Divide the whole year into 12 months, with 30 days each month and the remaining 5 days as festivals; At the same time, a year is divided into three seasons, namely "flood season", "valley season" and "harvest season", with four months in each season. Herodotus said, "The Egyptians were the first human beings to put forward the method of timing the solar year ... In my opinion, their timing method was better than that of the Greeks, because the Greeks had to insert a leap month every other year to make the seasons coincide ...".
In the era of three or four thousand BC, whenever Sirius rose from the east before dawn in summer, the Nile began to flood. The Egyptians regarded this as a warning of the flood in the holy river, so they regarded Sirius as a god and worshipped it. They built temples, offered sacrifices to Sirius and prayed for a bumper harvest. The door of the Egyptian goddess "Islamic State" is facing the rising direction of Sirius. Others think that the famous Egyptian pyramids are used to observe Sirius.
It is very interesting that Sirius's Egyptian hieroglyphics are also triangular, much like the shape of a pyramid. The ancient Egyptians regarded the time between this time when Sirius rose from the east before dawn and the next time when Sirius rose from the east before dawn as a year, and set the day before dawn as the beginning of a year, which was called the Year of the Wolf Star. The length of a year of Wolf Star is 365.25 days, which is very close to today's exact figure of 365.2422 days. This is the earliest solar calendar in human history and the ancestor of the current Gregorian calendar.
The Egyptians divided day and night into 12 parts, and each part was the time from sunrise to sunset or from sunset to sunrise112. The Egyptians used a stone bowl to calculate time. There is a small mouth at the bottom of the stone bowl, and water drops leak out of the bowl at a fixed speed. The stone bowl is engraved with various marks to indicate the time of different seasons.
Astrology in ancient Egypt was very developed. Just like the characteristics of ancient Egyptian civilization, their twelve constellations are also represented by the gods of ancient Egypt.
In addition to knowing the stars near the North Pole, Egyptians can also determine from the images painted on the unearthed coffin cover that they also know the stars such as Cygnus, Capricorn, Cassiopeia, Orion, Scorpio, Aries and the Pleiades. The biggest feature of Egyptian star recognition is that the stars near the equator are divided into 36 groups, each group may be a few stars or a star. Each group of tubes lasts 10 days, so it is called ten-day star. When a group of stars rises before dawn, it marks the arrival of this ten-day holiday. The earliest ten-day star cultural relics discovered now belong to the third dynasty. Note: From 3000 BC to 332 BC, Egypt experienced 3 1 dynasties.
The largest pyramid in ancient Egypt was built by the fourth Pharaoh Qi Apps near Cairo. Tower height146.5m, tower bottom length of 230m, and total floor area of about 52,900 square meters. The whole tower used 2.3 million cubic meters of boulders, and each boulder weighed about 2.5 tons on average. The stones used in the tower surface have been finely polished, all stacked, with tight gaps and no putty, and even a thin knife can't be inserted. The Great Pyramid of Qi is not only magnificent in appearance, but also carefully calculated in terms of angle, line and earth-rock pressure. Therefore, despite four or five thousand years of wind and rain, it still stands tall today. This is a miracle in the history of human architecture in the middle of the 3rd century BC, when it was still in the Bronze Age. According to the Egyptian legend recorded by the Greek historian Herodotus, in the process of building the Great Pyramid, Qi Apps recruited all Egyptian manpower in stages. Just to pave the road for transporting stones, 654.38+10,000 people were requisitioned, paving the road for 10 years. The construction of the pyramid doppelganger took another 654.38 million people and 30 years.
However, apart from the magnificence and magic of the pyramid, what is more intriguing is that all four sides of the pyramid correctly point to the southeast, northwest and southeast. In ancient times, four or five thousand years ago, when there was no compass, the orientation could be determined so accurately. There is no doubt that astronomical measurement was used, perhaps the Polaris-Tianlong constellation was used to orient! In the north of Qi Apps Pyramid, a tunnel with an angle of 27 degrees with the horizontal plane was left. At that time, from the center of the pyramid, through the tunnel, looking at the sky, you can just see the dragon constellation that hardly moved overnight. The Egyptians first used the Polaris at that time to determine the true north direction of the pyramid, and the other three directions were not difficult to determine.
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Egyptian culture: