Wrapping up ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt left behind many legacies to future civilisations. A legacy in this context means a special contribution that a civilisation leaves behind.

People leave legacies too, and I don’t mean money. They leave behind their ideas, their acts of kindness, their inventions and their creativity. You are exploring the legacies of human beings in your work for the Night of Notables.

An example of a civilisation’s legacy is writing. 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.

A legacy could also be:

  • 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.

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.

Mathematics:

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?

Finally, see how many of the questions in the quiz below you can answer correctly.

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20 Replies to “Wrapping up ancient Egypt”

  1. I think that the most important part of the legacy is the pyramids because it showed how advanced the Egyptians were at architecture and how they actually had knowledge of pi (the mathematical equation) before we had even planted the seeds of our western civilisation.

  2. I think the sphinx is one of the best legacies. It obviously took lots of work, and the fact that it barely has any structural damage makes it so much better.

  3. I think the best legacy the Egyptian’s left behind was how beautiful, perfect and well crafted their art work was. The legacy I want to leave behind is being able to look after and help young kids that have suffered diseases and haven’t had a good childhood!!!

  4. I think the most worth wile thing they could do was navigation. Navigation is truly very smart for someone in that age because of the limited resource’s of information that they had. It’s needed to sculpt the society of mankind.
    The type of legacy that I want to leave behind is something to do with Art/Animal Rights/The Environment and to be a wonderful person to everyone who known’s me.

  5. I like history since I was a little kid because my grandpa always tell me to read history book so now history is my first interest, I’m interested in everything in history war, emperor, historical characters and legacy.
    Math is the subject I’m good at so my comments is about pi I think it’s pretty amazing how they got pi which have more than 100 decimals.
    I want to be a historian when I grew up( first reference.)

  6. I would like to leave a legacy of rebellion (getting laws changed ect) and non-conformism and to make the Australia a slightly better place for people of all ages and all races

  7. One of the ancient Egyptians legacy that they left behind is building the pyramids and mumification. The legacy I want to leave behind is helping kids in third world countries to be able to write and teach them things for the future!

  8. I think that the magnificent Pyramids of Giza are a very interesting legacy that the Ancient Egyptians left behind a few thousand years ago. I think the method of building these pyramids was very well planned. I like the way that the Egyptians built the pyramids in an exact square. A legacy that I personally want to leave behind is a record of being a great helping person to everyone who needs help.

  9. The magnificent use of the complicated mathematics of pi are what I think are the most important legacy of the Ancient Egyptians, I think the way they used this complex form of maths is an extremely immense change in our society. A legacy I wish to leave behind is the assist the ones that are in need of it.

  10. I think that the great pyramids of Giza are the Egyptians best legacy because of its sheer size and the mathematics involved. It’s absolutely amazing I can’t imagine how many people it would have taken to make this huge achievement.

  11. I think that the pyramids of Giza are the Egyptians most famous legacy because of the mathematics with their limited tools . This is an amazing achievment not even having a wheel or any other technology.

  12. I think that the Egyptians greatest legacy is the Great Pyramids of Giza because it inspired today’s architectural designs on buildings
    I would like to leave my legacy as achieving a great thing in my life

  13. I think ancient Egypt did many things for us. The beautiful writing that they created shows how clever they were. Great pyramids were built to show the beauty of Egypt. Pyramids were built in Ancient Egypt as tombs, or burial places, for Egyptian pharaohs, or kings. They believed that the pyramids made you immortal. Egyptian architecture was very famous. People made beautiful art, drawing by using paint, gold, etc.

  14. I think a great legacy that the Ancient Egyptains left behind was their way they built boats and other ways of transporting goods around.

    I would like to help people in other countries who are less fortunate than us by volunteering.

  15. I think the Egyptian Hieroglyphs were the most interesting legacy in ancient Egyptian. Hieroglyphs were similar to English, because they were based on sound, but hieroglyphs were really difficult to write and hard to understand.

  16. I think the most interesting legacy is their use of pi (3.14159) im surprised that they were advanced enough to figure it out

  17. The egyptions greatest achievmant was there architecture and knowledge as well as there intellegence in logistics and measurements in making there marvelouse pyramids of geeza. They are also well known for there life after death and reincarnation in the afterlife including the marvellous rtombs in there great pyramids to the wonderful holes in the valley of the kings.

  18. I really admire how the Egyptians created so many fascinating and amazing things that showed their culture and style. This changed their life, way of looking at things & their future.
    I would like to explore and find a solution to something big that will change people’s decisions, actions and thoughts & open their mind.
    It will give me intelligence and will change the world OR me.
    I do not wish for others to see how great I am or to be famous, but for myself to realise it and be proud of it. My wanted legacy

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