Egyptian Civilisation

A civilization can be define as an advanced stage or system of human development characterized by social hierarchy and government, the division of labor and economic specialization, economic organization, settled agriculture, cultural traditions and practices, religion, art and architecture. A region must contain most or all of these characteristics if they are to be considered a civilization. Without these characteristics a society will have no structure and its people will be considered to be in a state of barbarism. The characteristics of a civilization help not only to give a society a sense identity, but a sense of history as well; this ensures that people in the present could look to the pass and know that a group of people existed during a particular period, in a particular region and carried out certain practices that would have distinguished them from other groups existing during their time. The Egyptians were a group of people that established their civilization along the banks of the Nile River in Egypt. Egypt is located between Africa and the Middle East and the Egyptian society contained many characteristics that distinguished them as a civilization. In this essay I will discuss some of the major features of the Egyptian civilization from the Early Dynastic period to the Late Intermediate period.
The Early Dynastic period was the period which saw the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt into a single kingdom and it consisted of two dynasties. This unification occurred around 3100 BC and ancient Egyptians acknowledged this to be the start of their civilization. It was during this period that government was established in Egypt in the form of kingship. Egyptians believed that a king named Menes was responsible for the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt. However according to archaeological findings, the real historical figure and the last king of the Protodynastic Period was Narmer, the first pharaoh to claim to have united Upper and Lower Egypt. The...