Origin of the Ancient Egyptians Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Origin of the Ancient Egyptians - Essay Example They were rich in stone, wood, minerals, sand, and many kinds of vegetation 2. Predynastic technological developments can be divided into several distinct areas, each with its own specialized tools and techniques, but sometimes sharing other tools, methods and materials. In particular, the establishment of the tools and procedures for the large-scale manufacture of stone vessels during the Nagada II 3and the Nagada III/Dynasty 4 periods crucially contributed to the growth of other technologies in these periods, and in the Dynastic era. For example, the carving of the ceremonial schist palette of King Narmer, and Dynastic hard stone statuary, benefited from the skills and tools established for shaping earlier Predynastic hard stone vessels, stone hand-axes and mace heads. Also, it is possible that the Late Predynastic expansion in faience manufacture can be attributed to an increased availability of copper-contaminated quartz powders 5. Among the great sayings from the origin of ancient Egypt, a common anecdote resides that when the world's first historian, Herodotus visited Egypt in the fifth century B.C., he asked its priests the key to Egypt's greatness and he was replied by the answer that Egypt is the gift of the Nile. Egyptian civilization would never have accomplished its wonders had it not been for this gift of nature, so crucial to its people and so mysterious that they considered it divine. This is what Egypt has always been famous for. Egyptian Origin in Historical Context of Architecture Although pyramids and temples from ancient Egypt still impress us thousands of years after they were built, all that remains of the homes where people were born, grew to adulthood and died are occasional low mounds of mud outlines. Temples and tombs endure because Egyptians made a sharp distinction between their religious architecture, constructed of permanent stone for eternity, and all other buildings, even palaces and fortresses, which were built of less durable adobe 6. Many ancient cultures held similar beliefs about their ruler's divine afterlife and expended great energy creating special burials for their kings. Egypt's special contribution was a new tomb design first devised in about 2700 B.C. Architects for the pharaoh Zoser stacked six decreasingly smaller stone brick rectangles on top of each other to form a towering, 200-foot-high 'Step Pyramid'. This first large building ever raised in stone by humankind initiated a series of pyramids, structural feats that became the symbol of Egypt. "Three distinctive architectural elements were developed in ancient Egypt - the pyramid, the propylaeum or pylon, and the obelisk" 7. Ancient Egyptians had to contend with enormous temperature swings. At noon on a summer day, in this country surrounded by desert, the temperature could reach 120F; nevertheless, because the