Today we will take the bus the Egyptian national museum it should be a 35 minute drive, but depending on traffic it could take longer. At the museum we will focus on the exhibits that demonstrate writing. Hieroglyphics were written on papyrus, which is a dried up reed which is weeved tightly together, Heiroglyphics were also written on wood and pots, but it is most commonly found on papyrus. Hieroglyphics were made up of little hand drawn picutres so it took quite a while to learn and there was also over 2,000 of them to learn, this is why only specific people learned to write it called scribes and training to be a scribe started at a young age, scribes came from wealthy families, but if you got the job you were lucky because you dint have to enter the army or pay any taxes, it is also quite a high paying job. We will look at exhibits that show examples and we will analyse them and make up simple messages to each other. We will also find out how people crack the ancient code of hieroglyphics, and how Napoleon found the Rosseta stone, where they found an message written in hieroglyphics with a greek translation underneath it. Even though hieroglyphics is Egyptian writing the word hieroglyphics was only developed by ancient greeks which referred to it is the holy writing (hieros meaning holy, glyphe meaning writing). Although ancient Egypt had been around awhile the text form was only developed around 3000 bce.
After lunch we will drive to Memphis (around 40 minutes without traffic) There will will discover an ancient city, we will walk around and find all the things that make a good city. Here we will discover the feature of cites. Cities all started out as small villages, but as the population grows, more and more space is needed, so more houses is built and so a small city is born, eventually the city becomes bigger and soon we have a big city. If you look at an ancient map you will see that most cities are situated along the river nile because of the fertile ground. The layout of most ancient cites are pretty similar with one massive all aorund it two main entrances and lots of little street connecting everything to the main street. The houses that were built were made out of mud, (witch is another good reason to be near the nile). Not all cities were the same thing, some cities were different, so they would have more political building rather than houses, (Kand of the way we have districts now). In Ancient Egypt the most important cities were the capital cites, they had many cites over time, but the original city was Thinis some of the others were Memphis, Akhetaten,Alexandria and Avaris. Some historians have a theory that while Memphis was capital ( 2950 BCE to 2180 BCE ) at its peak time it was the BIGGEST city in the world. When Memphis stepped away from the position of Capitol city it became the most important city for religion.
After lunch we will drive to Memphis (around 40 minutes without traffic) There will will discover an ancient city, we will walk around and find all the things that make a good city. Here we will discover the feature of cites. Cities all started out as small villages, but as the population grows, more and more space is needed, so more houses is built and so a small city is born, eventually the city becomes bigger and soon we have a big city. If you look at an ancient map you will see that most cities are situated along the river nile because of the fertile ground. The layout of most ancient cites are pretty similar with one massive all aorund it two main entrances and lots of little street connecting everything to the main street. The houses that were built were made out of mud, (witch is another good reason to be near the nile). Not all cities were the same thing, some cities were different, so they would have more political building rather than houses, (Kand of the way we have districts now). In Ancient Egypt the most important cities were the capital cites, they had many cites over time, but the original city was Thinis some of the others were Memphis, Akhetaten,Alexandria and Avaris. Some historians have a theory that while Memphis was capital ( 2950 BCE to 2180 BCE ) at its peak time it was the BIGGEST city in the world. When Memphis stepped away from the position of Capitol city it became the most important city for religion.