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ancient Egypt

• Message 1.Ìý

  Posted by tv-ben-old (U13833476) on Sunday, 15th February 2009

  anything that you know ancient Egypt will do

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by TerryG*09* (U13753139) on Tuesday, 17th February 2009

  That is too simple is there any thing your looking for in particular?

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• Message 3

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  Posted by Stoggler (U1647829) on Tuesday, 17th February 2009

  What about ancient Egypt? What on earth are you asking?

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• Message 4

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  Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Tuesday, 17th February 2009

  "What on earth are you asking?"
  
  That someone else do his/her homework for him/her. Don't schools teach that books are for reading anymore, or that they can teach one most of what they need or wish to know?

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• Message 5

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Tuesday, 17th February 2009

  The ancient Egyptians were a race originally from the area between Syria and Babylon in the middle east. In response to the incessant raiding of Uzbek tribes, they migrated to what is now Egypt which was more readily defensible. In doing so, they conquored the indigenous Akkadians and used Akkadian knowledge and slaves to convert the Akkadian pyramid-shaped temples to the Egyptian burial sites we know them today. It's claimed that the purpose was to force the Akkadians to accept the dead Pharoahs or Pharinas (Egyptian kings and queens) as gods.
  
  Some people have argued that the Akkadian intelligensia escaped by boat and fled down the Rec Sea to Sri Lanka which is why you find pyramids there too. I'm not convinced of this myself.
  
  But back to the Egyptians. Having fled the Uzbeks they set about building a society which worshipped animals - only the priests were allowed to eat meat as part of a sacrifice ritual.(Not much of a loss for the farmers who were generally too poor to eat meat anyway.) A priest would be elected by the free men of a village, anyone could stand for election so long as they knew the myths. The priests would them come together as elect the most holy of themselves as pharoah. The Pharoah had no duties other than to make the sun come up (so they believed), but in times of dire needs the Pharoah would be sacrificed to the gods where he could directly appeal to them for help. Though this only happened twice: the first time in response to the great plague of locusts (an insect which still destroys huge amounts of crops in North Africa) in 312BC and secondly, in response to the Carthaginian invasion by Hamilbarcar (father of the famous Hannibal) in 242 BC.
  
  Once ensconced in Egypt, they were a mostly peaceful people - the Nile valley is fertile so no need to make war for resources. But becoming immensely rich their coasts were often raided by Sicilian piates and famously by the Carthaginians who failed in their attempt to conquor Egypt. The Egyptians described a battle between themselves and the Carthaginians where the Nile rose up and flooded the Carthaginian camp, killing most of them. being a superstitious people they called in a miracle form the gods (probably to justify having sacrificed their pharoah). In reality, it was probably a freak early flooding of the nile which can happen following very wet winters. The victorious Egyptian general - Selukos siezed control and formed a hereditary kingship which "ruled" Egypt until the Arabs conquored it in 638AD. Theirs were the famous dynasties - a new one being named whenever the crown passed via a female child.
  
  What else do you need to know?

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• Message 6

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  Posted by MendipTim (U13707598) on Tuesday, 17th February 2009

  ..... & they all lived happily ever after!
  
  
  
  I think someone has been reading too many Egyptian Tourist Board's brochures. 2000 years in 2 paragraphs of generalisations doesn't do justice to the enquirer or to the long & very complex histories of old Egypt.

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• Message 7

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  Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Wednesday, 18th February 2009

  Hi MendipTim,
  
  I wouldn't take cloudy's elegant pastiche too seriously. Remember 'merda taurorum animas conturbit'!
  
  TP

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• Message 8

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  Posted by MendipTim (U13707598) on Wednesday, 18th February 2009

  Hi,
  
  Sorry CloudyJ, I wasn't attacking your good intentions shown by giving a reply to the original abstract question.
  
  My bug-bear is when a not-true history is guessed & then repeatedly reported as the true history so many times that it becomes ingrained as the truth. Any later attempts to try to find a more real history are hindered by the fog of those preconceptions. If you get on the wrong train it can be a long & complicated journey getting back to your original (& simple) destination.
  
  TP: It doesn't need to be BS to achieve the same effect with me! What is the Latin for living?!

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• Message 9

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  Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Wednesday, 18th February 2009

  Sorry CloudyJ, I wasn't attacking your good intentions shown by giving a reply to the original abstract question.Ìý
  Don't worry MendipTim. We often get people on here trying to get us to do their homewrok for them. My hope is that a lazy student will copy me and at least give his/her teacher something to smile about.
  
  My bug-bear is when a not-true history is guessed & then repeatedly reported as the true history so many times that it becomes ingrained as the truth. Any later attempts to try to find a more real history are hindered by the fog of those preconceptions. If you get on the wrong train it can be a long & complicated journey getting back to your original (& simple) destination.
  Ìý
  
  I doubt anyone looking deeper into the history will have any doubt in seeing my post for the rubbish it was.
  

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• Message 10

  , in reply to message 5.

  Posted by villamarce (U9034231) on Wednesday, 18th February 2009

  An interesting idea that the egyptian " race" originated nr Syria. To my understanding, in a biological sense, the human race originated in Africa

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• Message 11

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  Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Wednesday, 18th February 2009

  I did not know either about the theory on Syrian origins of Egyptians.
  
  Also, do please distinguish that from around 530 B.C. onwards there are NO Egyptian rulers. Persians conquered them and then Persians were conquered by Greeks. If talking from 330 B.C. to Roman times, we are talking about Greeks. Egyptians simply accepted their fate as the working class - something that remained unchanged to great extend until Arab conquest in 630 A.D. of this by then Eastern Roman region.
  
  The Ptolemaic dynasty while called themselves as "Pharaos" and adopted some elements (usually the bad ones - like endogamy!) of Pharaonic habits would not even think about calling themselves "Egyptians", in fact while they respected Egyptian culture, they largely looked down upon them as well upon any "barbarian" for they were Greeks and nothing else. In 300 years of the Ptolemaic dynasty no even a single one of them bothered to speak a single word in Egyptian, let alone sit down and learn, apart the last one, Cleopatra who as a kid received comprehensive education including foreign languages - including in there, Egyptian - the fact that she was thrown out of the Palace and of Egypt and threatened by her own relatives might had played a role in that, as she would try to make as many friends as possible everywhere to throw over her younger brother and take up leadership of Egypt. However, no matter if she spoke Egyptian as a foreign language, she would never think of herself as Egyptian, she knew very well where her ancestry was. Thus speaking about Egyptian Queen (so often mentioned today) is totally wrong, she was just the Queen of Egypt, Greek from the most traditionalist part of Greece, Macedonia as much as all her inbred family!

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• Message 12

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  Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Wednesday, 18th February 2009

  ... and she had not that large nose as said (she just had not any small one either but you cannot find easily Greeks with small noses anyway), but she was not either beautiful... she was a mundane girl in terms of beauty - what was attractive in her was her character and the fact that at a time when women were super-educated if knowing how to spell words on a text and would look at floors and ceilings in presence of an unknown man, she was as educated as the most educated philosophers, spoke 3-4 languages and had the nerve to play at a personal level with the general 20 years her senior, leader of her enemies that had invaded her country so well that people were afraid she would inherit the Roman Empire and move the power center to Egypt. If anything, she was not as sex-maniac as people said back then (most of such were just nasty rumours of jealous guys, not so successful in that field), she should be more remembered as one of the most competent leaders of the ancient times having taken the power from her completely uncompetent under-age brother, victim of arrivist counselors at a time when the country was in huge financial crisis (as it was encircled and isolated by the Roman Empire) and managed in a few years not only to correct this but also to re-become immensely rich, more rich than Rome - and that was what brought Romans there, they could just not tolerate Egypt being the 1/10th of their size and becoming double as rich as them. It was with the addition (and the money!) of Egypt that Rome became a real Empire, albeit, the dream of Cleopatra to see her son Cesarion rule over the unified Empire did not materialise...

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