1. Ancient
Egypt
By Professor Justus Abele

2. The civilization of ancient Egypt existed between the time
of 2800 BCE and the beginning of the common era. It
was located at the shore of the Nile River and stretched
to the Mediterranean Sea. It was one of most powerful
civilizations of its time. Their culture is fascinating
because of the structure of society, organized trading
system, trained army and many legacies.

3. Structure of Society
The Ancient Egyptians had different levels of importance in society. Their Pharaoh or a
Queen was the most important person. They believed that the Pharaoh was a god in a
person’s body who couldn’t do anything wrong. Then they had grandvizers, nobles, high
priest and high priestess. The grandvizers were like the Pharaoh’s second hand; they
checked that all his orders were carried out. The priests and priestesses took care of the
shrines of gods and goddesses, and bathed four times a day. The next level of society
included craftsmen, artists, scribes, tax gatherers, priest and priestess. At the lower end,
there were builders, farmers, scribes, wabs and soldiers (who led dangerous lives). Most
people in Ancient Egypt were actually farmers who lived off their crops. If they didn’t pay
taxes, they were beaten. Least of all were the slaves who were captured as
hostages during war and led hard lives.
Therefore, it is clear that the ancient Egyptian society
had many levels which affected their wealth and lives.

4. Trading system
The ancient Egyptians did not have any money system like the
Romans and Greeks. Instead, they used weights called deben
and kite. Originally, a deben was as heavy as14 grams, then later
it increased in weight to 91 gram. Ten kite were worth one deben.
The Egyptians traded vegetables (that were as heavy as1 deben)
for a piece of meat (that also weighed 1 deben). The ancient
Egyptians often traded flax, rope and wheat at the marketplace.
They were famous for exporting wheat and importing gold. The
Egyptians wrote receipts on stone tablets to keep track of
payments.
As you can see, even though the ancient
Egyptians had
no money system,
their trading system worked very well.

5. Egyptian warfare
The ancient Egyptians had one of the best trained armies during their
golden age. Although their army didn’t often fight against invaders
(because the desert protected their country), they still fought in many civil
wars. They used silver slicing axes, spears and shields made of ox hide.
The Pharaohs in the new kingdom fought from horse-drawn chariots. The
ancient Egyptians had already invented their own battle tactics. First, they
used a shower of arrows. Then, the foot soldiers came to fight the main
part of the battle. At last, they chased down any remaining enemy
soldiers. Therefore, we know that the ancient Egyptains had a well
organised army that led many great battles.

6. Legacies
The ancient Egyptians invented many great things. They invented the
shaduf(that they used to lift water from the Nile). They also invented one
of the first kinds of paper. It was called papyrus, grown with the water
from the river nile) and made out of papyrus reeds. The word paper
comes from the word papyrus. They also invented a system of writing.
There were two kinds of writing: one was called hieratic it was used for
daily use, then there where hieroglyphs used for religious inscriptions.
The Egyptians were very famous for their agriculture. They learned to use
a flood plain because they built dams, shades and channels to keep the
water in the field that they got from the River Nile. Therefore we now
know that many of Egypt’s important inventions resulted from the River
Nile.

7. In conclusion, ancient Egypt was one of the
most advanced civilizations of its time. This
report has described their systems of trade,
structure of society and warfare. Many of the
Egyptian inventions are still used today
including the shaduf, writing and some of
their agriculture lessons.

8. References
Author Date Title
James Mason 1991 Ancient
Egypt
Jane Shutter 1991 The Ancient
Egyptians
John Mallam 1999
Mummies
Website
19-10-11 www.historyforekids.com