gypt is a country located on
the northern tip of the African Continent, south of the Mediterranean Sea. It
is a very old and ancient civilization. Most consider it the cradle of civilization.
Ancient Egyptians discovered and invented things that we use today in the modern
world. For example, Egyptians created the calendar, and redesigned the hoe into
a plow (that was first pulled by men, not animals). They developed irrigation
techniques and dams to protect their farms from the flooding of the Nile River.
Ancient Egyptians also developed the first ideas of modern geometry
that the Greeks later expanded on.
he location of Egypt made it
easy for the country to become one of the most powerful in the world at one time.
Egypt conquered many countries and was conquered by many countries during its
time of dominance. It was first conquered by the Persians
around 525 BC, then by the Macedonians,
led by Alexander the Great, around
333 BC. And also by the Romans, led by Julius
Caesar, in 50 BC. Despite all of its conquerors, Egypt remained the ideal place
for Mediterranean people to study scientific, religious and social knowledge.
It was such an ideal learning place that many Greek scholars traveled to study
there. One of the most famous of all the Greek scholars, Herodotus,
recognized Egypt as the cradle of civilization. He believed (though not all modern
scholars agree) that Greece borrowed most of the elements of its civilization
from Egypt, even elements as sacred as the names of the Greek Gods. In his Histories,
Herodotus states;
"The names of nearly all the Gods came to Greece from
Egypt. I know from the inquiries I have made that they
have come from abroad, and it seems most likely that it
was from Egypt, for the names of all the Gods have been
known in Egypt from the beginning of time."
ven though Herodotus had strong
beliefs that much of Greek civilization was an adaptation of early Egyptian culture,
not many other scholars shared his views. Another Greek scholar named Plutarch
even went so far as to refer to Herodotus as the "father of lies". They
did not believe that the great advancements and accomplishments that came from
Greece were simply continuations of what Egyptians had begun.