Civilization came a long way since what it first was. Human creativity was the root of the evolution of civilization. The basics of human survival in the Stone Age were creating fire, heat, clothing, and food from the surrounding resources of the lands. There were also many different cultural aspects among people in this age. In early Mesopotamia, the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians had a communal outlook on religion. Although their religious outlook was the same, they viewed the world in many different ways that in fact affected their thoughts, art, and literature. The Mesopotamians had a very basic pessimistic belief on their world and viewed the gods as a way to win at life and to handle their desires. Mesopotamian literature was …show more content…
To compare and contrast Mesopotamia and Egypt, Mesopotamia introduced more of a literacy value to the civilization including formal law codes, city planning, architecture, and many institutions. They became very advanced in irrigation, farming, pottery, bronze and copper. Mesopotamia was becoming very complex in their ruling system and money systems. They were ruled by a king and used silver to trade and buy goods. On the other hand, a pharaoh whom was seen as god and worshipped had complete power over the entire country of Egypt. Due to their complex geographic structure along the Nile River, there was a lot of slave labor. Although both had many differences, they both enjoyed religion and art, relied on rivers for transportation, importation, and exportation. They each had slaves to do the labor from their complex civilizations and also had the same stratification of social contrasts between peasants on the bottom and landowners well above and beyond at the top. Other similarities included writing, law and communication (Comparison of Early Mesopotamia and Egypt).
As civilization evolved, the classical Greek period was an age filled with questions, democracy, design, tragedies, and even a new found love, the Olympic games. Much of the basics of evolution began in the eye of the Western culture in Ancient Greece. The romans conquered the Greeks and their philosophies and concepts were spread almost throughout all of Europe. After the Roman Empire fell,
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.
Egypt developed around the Nile River, while Mesopotamia developed between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Egypt and Mesopotamia grew into complex civilizations. Politically, both Egypt and Mesopotamia had a government with one main ruler, but Egypt had a centralized government with a pharaoh, while Mesopotamia had a decentralized government with a king. Socially, both civilizations were patriarchal, but Egypt was more lenient towards women while Mesopotamia was stricter. The political and social structures of Egypt and Mesopotamia both similarities and differences.
Both societies also permitted slavery which was not based on race, but on those who were captured in battle. Both also had their own religion with their own customs and beliefs. In Mesopotamia, the priests and the king were part of the upper class, the merchants and artisans were part of middle class, the farmers and the laborers made up the lower-middle class, and the slaves were the lowest class. In Egypt, the highest class consisted of the pharaoh, the priests were part of the upper-middle, merchants and artisans were part of the middle, and the lower class consisted of farmers and laborers. The lowest class consisted of the slaves who were captured in battle. It is important to note that slavery was based on prisoners captured in battes and not on race. Thus, despite the similarities, both societies also had unique characteristics for their own religion and beliefs.
Economically, these two civilizations both shared prosperous success in similar manners. One connection between Mesopotamia and Egypt is that they both manipulated their designated rivers to perform critical trade operations by using them as routes. They were able to communicated and send goods with other civilizations in a farther location via the river system. Also, these two civilizations were very productive in the agricultural field due to the strategically created irrigation systems that provided water to their fertile soils to provide lush vegetations in Nile and Sumer. The one difference between Mesopotamia and Egypt in terms of economy is that the Nile government controlled most if not all of the trading monopoly, and they had their citizens pay substantial taxes.
What similarities and differences did Egypt and Mesopotamia have and why was Egypt more politically unified than its neighbor, Mesopotamia? I think in order to answer these questions it is important to look at how both societies lived. Egypt and Mesopotamia were two civilizations existing during the time period of 2000-1200 BCE.(text, 97) These civilizations were shaped by their environment, involved with trade, and faced changes in government after the 100 year drought; however, they differed in that Egypt was shaped by the Nile, traded goods for goods and changed their outlook on the pharaoh who was ruler of all; whereas, Mesopotamia was shaped by the Tigris and Euphrates, traded money for goods, and had a ruler over rulers. The
Mesopotamia and Egypt were very different because of their geography and world view. Mesopotamia was often flooded because of their bad geography, but the land around the Nile river was built well so the Egyptians didn 't have to worry about the river flooding as often. The land in Mesopotamia was often attacked and invaded. Ultimately the geography of Egypt was significantly better than Mesopotamia because of the benefits of the nile river created a positive world view, a strong government and a universal religion.
The people living in Egypt from 3100 to 322 B.C. and the citizens inhabiting Mesopotamia from 3300 B.C. to 1100 both built their societies based on the eight features of civilization in order to fulfill Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. In the ancient cultures of Egypt and Mesopotamia, members of the Mesopotamian race thoroughly utilized their organized government and public works as features of civilization, ultimately proving that the citizens of Mesopotamia had more opportunities to be happy and successful then those living in Egypt. First of all, the modern government of Mesopotamia was founded under Hammurabi’s strong code of law and was essentially designed to protect citizens with little power.
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
The Egyptians viewed the afterlife as a happy place filled with food and the gods. In contrast, the Mesopotamians viewed the afterlife as a place of horror and fear. The vital cause for the differences of viewpoints in the afterlife is the River they depended on. Both civilizations saw the afterlife as an extension of their current life. With this being said, the Nile was giving and gave them lots of water along with silt, which was crucial for the survival of their crops. In turn, the Egyptians perspective on the afterlife was gracious. Conversely, the Mesopotamians depended on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. While it did bless them with fresh water, on occasions, the river would grow violent and cause a catastrophic amount of damage to their homes and crops. Since they also viewed their afterlife as an extension to their current lives, they saw it as a dark and horrible place that wasn’t wanted. However, both civilizations accomplished achievements through religion and for other reasons.
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.
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.
Both the Mesopotamian and Egyptian societies shared similar traits such as social stratification, astronomy, time measurement, mathematics and a literary system therefore, highly modern. However, the Egyptians had very colorful and lively art while the Mesopotamians were less monumental in their art and more literary. Gender equality was also better in the Nile civilization evident in their vital marriages, goddesses and love poetry with no female infanticide whereas the civilization centered near the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers pertained more to technological advances and
They brought writing, the wheel, the calendar, and astronomy. Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt allowed human beings, for the first time in history, to settle down in one place and farm instead of chasing their often dangerous wild animal food sources. Both civilizations shared similarities and differences in their climate, politics, intellect, religion, arts and architecture, technology, economics, and social structures, that allowed them to flourish and become two of the most well-known ancient civilizations.
Religion was practiced throughout Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. Both the Mesopotamians and Egyptians shared polytheistic beliefs. Each god was responsible for an action, but they did not consider the gods to be equal in Mesopotamian society, in order to please the gods, a sacrifice must be made to please them in order to avoid the god’s wrath. The separation of church and state did not exist in both ancient civilizations, pharaohs of Egyptian society was known to be a god on Earth, the incarnation of Horus, the falcon god. The Mesopotamian rulers were known as a representative to the gods. Although they worship to several different gods, they do have differences between the two. The idea of an afterlife, In Mesopotamia didn’t exist but for the Egyptians the idea of an afterlife was of significant importance to them, rituals were held to ensure that the body and soul would be ready for an eternal life after death. The writing systems of both the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians have many similarities. Pictographic writing, which was developed by the
The Mesopotamians believed that the land possessed by demons and spirits and that they were co-workers with the gods. According to them, they believed that the beginning of the world was due to the victory of the gods over the forces of nature and that also the gods had won, this did not mean that the chaos could not come back again. The citizens of the land were expected to honor the elders and the gods in their day-to-day activities.