Mesopotamia and Egypt Comparison Essay

With governmental machinery that brought political and social order to their territories, effective political and military power enabled them to build regional empires and expand their authority to neighboring people. Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia were two great civilizations among the earliest to emerge in the Middle east and North Africa. Both made significant contributions in areas such as mathematics, medicine, agriculture, astronomy, technology, architecture, art and writing. They had differences as well, including their political structures. Most importantly is that Egyptians were under a centralized government, and the Mesopotamians had self-controlled city state governments.

The culture in both Mesopotamia and Egypt influenced both civilizations. However, Egypt’s culture had a significant and drastic impact on the governmental structure. Egypt was claimed to be a theocracy, so the behavior of residents was caused by the pharaoh who was the source of all law throughout the region and was classified to be a god. This idea ties in adequately with the idea of Egypt being a centralized type of government. Their leaders were worshipped and praised respectfully so whatever the pharaoh decided was seen to be morally correct or important and was to be followed by society. On the other hand, Mesopotamia had a decentralized government that had little to no relationship with

The political structure of Ancient Egypt was made of a government structure that was more enforced whereas the pharaoh was the Devine ruler, who the people perceived as a god and could not address while directly looking at him in the face (Backman). Noblemen appointed into the political structure were relatives of the pharaoh and upon his death, his son was to succeed him (Connan, 33-50). It was believed that Pharaoh descended from the gods and had the ability to ensure prosperity and controlled rituals which granted continued flow of river Nile that enhanced irrigation (Connan, 33-50). There was a high rate of bureaucracy in Ancient system influenced by this political structure and most people were illiterate peasants, they were highly regulated (Backman). On the contrary, Mesopotamia consisted of states that governed themselves before the proclamation of Sargon the great as the king in 2370BCE (Backman). The king here was not considered as divine and the majority of those who served in the political structure were just noble men from noble families with no blood relations with the ruling class (Connan, 33-50).

When you look back in history to the development and the contributions of both the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations, you see that there was a lot accomplished, as well as a lot created. The earliest forms of writing developed in Mesopotamia, while Egypt was referred to the “Gift of the Nile” by traveler Herodotus (McKay,42). Development of cities was another major marker, especially in the “old world”, of how people eventually determined civilizations and what they represented. According to McKay, civilizations were determined by people who considered themselves more “civilized”, urban people mostly. Made up of cities, written rules of law, and social justice codes, Mesopotamia and Egypt would develop into two of the largest civilizations in history.

Politically, although both Egypt and Mesopotamia had one main ruler, Egypt was centralized and whereas Mesopotamia was decentralized. Egypt centralized government led

Mesopotamia and Egypt had different types of governance. In Mesopotamia, the government was a monarchy, whereas the Egyptian government was a theocracy. The difference is that in an Egyptian theocracy, society was ruled by a king who was worshipped and considered a god-like figure. A monarchy is a government ruled by a king or military ruler. In Mesopotamians society, priests held the most power, until military leaders came to power due to the arising dangers of attack. Military leaders promised protection and power to Mesopotamians. The Mesopotamians believed that

While Mesopotamian and the Indus River Valley were alike in their social characteristics, their political views differed slightly. Records from the Indus civilizations have yet to fully been translated, and therefore not much is known in the way of Indus political structure. What most historians assume is that it was broken into city-states with a common ruler, which is the way that Mesopotamia was governed as well. Despite this similarity, the Indus government was more focused on religious aspects than Mesopotamian government was. This can be deduced by the fact that Indus rulers were always priest-kings, while the highest status in Mesopotamia was achieved first by the king, and then by the priests. These kings were also usually the head of the military, while the priests ran schools, distributed land, were considered doctors, and were in charge of religion. Kings and

Even though both prospered after a devastating drought, they both had different approaches in which they traded goods. I think that the approach, Egypt took, made it more unified than Mesopotamia. One reason is that, according to them, they wanted nice things to put into their tombs to use in the afterlife. The nice things were like furniture, and coffins that were constructed from wood that was imported in from Phoenicia. (text, 107) A second reason is that when ever the Egyptians colonized a new area they would build stationed forts to broaden trade routes. (text, 107) Plus, in Egypt, they traded goods for goods. (text, 107) In contrast, I believe that most of Mesopotamia’s businessmen were concerned with just getting the money and nothing else, because money was so much easier to transport than heavy loads that were being traded. (lecture, Dr. Kaz , Feb 9th 2009) When Mesopotamia recovered from the

Southern Mesopotamia had no government. The people of Southern Mesopotamia needed a ruler, someone to lead them through tough times as the population grew. Hammurabi started as their ruler, and then appointed himself King. The King also had people who worked for him, because he wouldn’t have been able to do all the jobs himself. He had people who built temples, settled disputes, maintained the complicated system of canals, and irrigated farms. He was also the lead priest at Ziggurat, the main temple. He had lots of rules that everyone in Mesopotamia had to follow. For example, “If a judge try a case, reach a decision, and present his judgment in writing; if later error shall appear in his decision, and it be through his own fault, then he shall pay twelve times the fine set by him in the case, and he shall be publicly removed from the judge's bench, and never again shall he sit there to render judgment.” (Hammurabi Codes 5) This just on example of how detailed the 282 rules could be. This shows us that Hammurabi was very strict and liked rules.

Mesopotamia was a decentralized civilization, and resulted with many rulers leading the many city-states within the empire. Due to the many wars occurring within, kings were originally war leaders, and the function of defense and war, including leadership of a trained army, remained vital. Due to being many rulers within the empire, there were many internal conflicts, let alone the outside ones, which resulted in Mesopotamia further advanced its empire by developing ideas for a bureaucracy and laws, by using Hammurabi’s code. It laid down the procedure for law courts and regulated property rights and duties of family members, setting harsh punishments for crimes. This focus on standardizing a legal system was one of the features of early civilization. Also, the political structure there was enforced by none other than the Sumerians, which can be seen in many similar ideas and traits passed on today’s modern

The most apparent difference was these civilizations’ distinct type of rule. Egypt had pharaohs as their kings or rulers. Pharaohs were seen as holy figures and treated as gods, which allowed ancient Egypt to have a single, unified governing body, combining church and state. Mesopotamia was divided into city-states with a ruler governing each area independently. This led to a more fragmented political structure with recurring clashes and wars. The story of the Mesopotamian era is one of war, feud, and collapse; whereas ancient Egypt was mostly unified, sustaining a stable and well-structured

Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia present a valuable area of historical research. They are of great importance mostly because of their ethnic kinship (Watson, 2017). In such case, comparison and contrast essay is very promising as causal relationships can be formed based on a mutual starting point. This comparison-contrast essay focuses on differences and similarities in these societies’ economic, political and cultural life in order to make further implications regarding the circumstances the peoples of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia faced.

Throughout the history of Earth, there have been many fascinating developments, the most prominent being the first civilizations, Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. They had many similarities, such as characteristics of early civilizations and social structures, but they also had their differences. The most embossed differences included the divergent geography, prior belief, trade, relations with other civilizations, and politics.

Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt are both cradles of civilization. Both contributed greatly to human development through their achievements, failures, peoples, scientific accomplishments, philosophies, religions, and contributions.

When comparing cultures it would be difficult to find two that are more diverse than the Mesopotamian and Egyptian cultures. The Mesopotamian culture was filled with tension and instability while the Egyptian people maintained a stable and somewhat more content way of life. In examining these two cultures one can surmise that these differences are mainly due to the political, economic, social, religious, and geographic differences between Egypt and Mesopotamia. These factors added to the overall mentality of the people. These mentalities affected the stability of each culture, whether for the better or worse.