Legacies of Ancient Egypt – and of the boys of 7Y

What do you want to be remembered for? The best computer game ever written? The first car powered entirely by recycled garbage? A wicked sense of humour? Would you like people to say as you walk by, “There goes that man who thought up that remarkable gadget – you know, the one that made the i-Phone redundant”? Or would you prefer something simpler, such as “He was a great father” or “He was wonderfully kind”?

Leonardo da Vinci - a great legacy
Leonardo da Vinci - a great legacy (photo kindly provided by Dee McQueen)

Everyone leaves some kind of legacy – and I don’t mean money. I mean an attitude of mind, a skill, an action or an achievement, hopefully one that is memorable and worthwhile, that lasts for many years and influences others. The people whom you have chosen for the Night of Notables are exceptional in this regard. You could be too.

The Colosseum - a legacy of great architecture and blood sports (photo kindly provided by Dee McQueen)
The Colosseum - a legacy of great architecture and, less admirably, blood sports (photo kindly provided by Dee McQueen) Can you think of other arenas based on this concept?

In the context of a civilisation, a legacy means a special contribution that a civilisation leaves behind. It might include:

  • a memorable idea such as a special way of organising a society or dealing with a problem;
  • some kind of scientific knowledge;

  • an invention;

  • a monument;

  • a skill;

  • an impressive achievement in art, government, literature, etc;

  • something that later societies have admired and sought to emulate.

For instance, the ancient Sumerians are believed to have been the first to create a writing system. They pressed wedge-shaped marks into clay tablets. Many historians believe that this is what gave the Egyptians the idea of developing hieroglyphs.

Here’s a quotation from an article about the 20-year history of the internet, by Guy Rundle in The Age on Sunday 15 March, 2009:

“Five thousand years ago, the invention of writing in Mesopotamia [Sumer] separated information from presence – a few strokes of cuneiform on a clay tablet established that meaning, intent, communication could be separated and transmitted without a person there to present it.

“From this event flows every modern institution of the state…”

That’s some legacy!

Cuneiform – clipart kindly provided by www.phillipmartin.info (I always think that it would be wonderful if the first writing was created to write love poems or great literature. But no – someone wanted a receipt. Sigh. This is a material world.)

The ancient Egyptians had many achievements over the course of their long history. Their beautiful tomb paintings, for example, show us all about their lives on the Nile River. They drew figures in a way that changed little over the years. Can you think of other great and inspiring achievements that others might have built upon?

Egyptian peasants during harvest – note the side-on presentation of the bodies in classic Egyptian style
Image in public domain from wikimedia.commons

See what you can find out about the legacies of the ancient Egyptians at these sites.

****************************************************************Pharaoh by RosMathematics:

http://math.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_mathematics_of_ancient_egypt

Ancient Egyptian ideas about pi:

http://ualr.edu/lasmoller/pi.html

Ancient Egyptian art:

http://www.aldokkan.com/art/art.htm

Ancient Egyptian water engineering and inventions: http://www.waterhistory.org/histories/nile/t1.html

(You’ll need to scroll down to read the vital information.)

Managing time – calendars and clocks: http://library.thinkquest.org/J002046F/technology.htm

Ancient Egyptian writing:

http://www.ancientscripts.com/egyptian.html

Your task: Leave a comment describing the ancient Egyptian legacy you consider most interesting, significant or worthwhile.

Then answer this question: What legacy would you as an individual like to leave behind? Another way to put this could be: How do you intend to leave the world a better place than you found it?

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18 Replies to “Legacies of Ancient Egypt – and of the boys of 7Y”

  1. The pyramids wern’t a great architectural feat. As a shape, the pyramid is very simple, a very easy job for an architect. It may have been a huge ENGINEERING feat, but not really an architectural feat. (of course it’s in engineering feat! They made a half million ton block for goodness sake!)

  2. My favourite legacy from Egypt is the art.

    I hope i my legacy will be that i am the guy who wrote an awesome books. =]

    Matt

  3. I don’t really care what I’m remembered by, just as long as it’s something. I’m not fussy.
    Also, I’m human, so that means that I would like to be remembered about something cool if I could, but I’m not going to waste my whole life trying to make one certain impression on the world. I’d rather just find something cool as I go along.

  4. My legacy would be to become an awsome architect, rated with people like Frank Loyd Wright (now that would be cool!)

  5. I would like to be remembered for my kindness or imagination. i think they are my best points.

  6. I think the Egyptians should be remembered for their maths as they were one of the first to use numbers. I would like to be remembered as a doctor that saved many lives.

  7. Ancient Egypt’s greatest legcay is the Pyramids. Their one of the most amazing man-made features of the planet. I thought it’d be cool if I was remembered as the guy who destroyed the universe, but then I realised that I wouldn’t be remembered as memory would have never existed. So I though I’d like to be remembered for writing the best movie ever.

  8. I think that irrigation is the biggest lagacy. it gave lifegiving water which allowed more crops to plant, no searching long ways for water, bigger civilistion.
    my lagacy would be a small machine which would be a combo of the latest gizmos, calculator, phone, touch screen, qwerty keyboard and many more
    Daniel 🙂

  9. My favorite legacy out of all the legacys in ancient egypt would be art

    BUt i dont really know what i want to be remember buy just that i want to be remembered for something. Even if it is outlandish.

  10. Task: I think that the egyptians should be remembered for their clocks. A way of remembering the time at such an early time is amazing.

    Answer to question.: I would like to be remembered as someone who brightened up everyones day.

  11. I think the most interesting legacy the Egyptians left was the fact that they had the first 365 day year. They had calendars and clocks and everything 😀

  12. my favorite Egyptian legacy would have to be writing. these people made language and succeeded at building an empire from it.

    for my legacy i would want to be remembered as a musician

  13. I think that the most interesting legacy left by the ancient Egyptians was Hieroglyphics. It is a unique and one of a kind language, and still a mystery to many people in the world.

  14. Ancient Egypt’s greatest legacy is their irrigation system. It is widely used all over the world and even in my front yard, but due to water restrictions, we are not aloud to use it.
    The great thing is it can be on a large or small scale as well.

  15. Being a peasant will be terriable. The thing i hate the most is NO COMPUTER!!! And we will have to hand write our homework!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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