was originally a term that represented the king’s resident and court, but eventually it was applied to him or her personally. The pharaoh was basically god on earth to ancient Egyptian society:
Under the Old Kingdom the idea appears that the kind is the absolute lord of the land. Soon he is venerated as a descendant of the gods, the original lords of the land. He becomes a god, Horus, son of Osiris, and takes on the mighty and terrible attributes of the divine maker of order; the bodies of his enemies are depicted hanging in rows like dead game birds, or kneeling in supplication lest their brains be ritually dashed out. Justice is ‘what Pharaoh loves’, evil ‘what Pharaoh hates’; he is divinely omniscient and so needs no code of law to guide him…‘He is a god by whose dealings one lives, the father and mother of all men, alone by himself, without an equal’.
This analysis of ancient Egyptian civilization will cover different aspects of their society such as the significance of the Nile, the daily life and culture of the ancient Egyptians, significant pharaohs and gods, and the transformation from polytheism to monotheism under Akhnaton and then back to monotheism under Tutankhamen. A conclusion will summarize some of the great contributions made to civilization by this ancient society.
Without the Nile, it is likely no great civilization would have risen in the location of ancient Egypt. Life in ancient Egypt evolved around agriculture and, hence, the Nile. The economy of Egypt was a sustenance economy whose cycles were based on the fact of the Nile’s annual flooding. From July through November the flooded banks of the Nile were not fit for agrarian pursuits, so the Egyptians grew as much wheat, fruit, and vegetables the other nine months of the year to sustain themselves during the flooding season. While there was a small amount of pastoral farming, agriculture and, therefore, the Nile were the basis o...