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studying the world around them.

Rich families became patrons and commissioned great art. Artists advanced the Renaissance style of showing nature and depicting the feelings of people.

The Nile is divided into sections by cataracts.  A cataract is a rocky area that creates a waterfall or rapids.  There are six cataracts in the Nile river.

 As the water level lowered, it would leave behind rich fertile soil for farmers

Fresh water, irrigation, fertile soil--this is why people called it the "gift" of the Nile.

Around 6000 BCE the climate began to change, which might explain why many humans changed from hunting and gathering to farming.  Before civilization, early humans came to the Nile River to hunt, fish, and gather food, but gradually as people learned to farm and domesticate animals (about 7000 BCE and 5500 BCE), and therefore live in permanent settlements, areas around the Nile became more crowded.

The change from nomadic hunter-gatherers to civilized living followed the same pattern as other places around the world: farming provided extra food, which allowed the division of labor, which allows the development of government and religion and creates social classes. 

Historians call them Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt

We know so much about the Egyptians because there are so many written resources and because their culture lasted so long with few interruptions

Another reason we know so much about Egypt is because they made their architecture out of stone, which has lasted for the most part. 

Religion was a the center of Egyptian life.  Egyptians believed in many Gods, so they were polytheistic.

Later Egyptians would call their kings “pharaoh”.  Egyptian people believed the pharaoh was a living God, so the Egyptians developed a theocracy, or a government ruled by religious leaders.  This is important to understanding why Egyptian people were so willing to give their grain to the Pharaoh and build him or her incredible temples—they thought the Pharaoh was a living God that would be with them forever in eternity.

The most well-known ritual was mummification.  Egyptians believed in life after death, and they wanted the body to look life-like.  Anyone could be mummified if they had enough money

Egyptians were a very advanced civilization due to their inventions and technology.  Egyptians developed a writing system called hieroglyphs that combined pictures and symbols.  Eventually, they created an alphabet from their symbols.  In 1822 CE a European explorer found what is called the Rossetta Stone (left picture)--a stone with the same message written in 3 different languages, which finally allowed historians to translate ancient hieroglyphs. Egyptians developed a 365-day calendar and used a number system based on 10. Egyptians figured out amazing ways to cut stone to use in their temples and obelisks.  An obelisk is a tall narrow monument that becomes more narrow as it goes up.  They created a writing material similar to paper called papyrus from reeds found in the Nile.  Egyptians were excellent ship builders and excelled at mathematics.  They used fractions, decimals, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and basic ideas of geometry.  Egyptian art and architecture is famous and has been reused and copied by many other civilization including Greece, Rome, and even the United States

Egyptian life depended on what social class you were a part of.

At the top of society was the Pharaoh.  Below the Pharaoh was the royal court (Pharaoh's family), high priests, government officials, and scribes and nobles (rich land owners).  Below them were doctors and engineers, craftsman, and then farmers and unskilled workers at the bottom.  Egyptians did use some slaves, but slavery is hardly mentioned in their writings.

Bread was the main food source, but they would have eaten meat during festivals. 

Egypt's history is divided into six different time periods

creating Egypt's first dynasty.  He defeated some enemies and united Upper and Lower Egypt into one civilization.

One of the first major Pharaohs of the Old Kingdom was Djoser.  His temple was one of the first pyramids Egyptians tried to build.  It was a "step pyramid" and it started the tradition of building pyramids as a burial ground for Pharaohs. Although the term "Pharaoh" wasn't used until much later, we will keep using it to refer to Egyptian kings.   

Hatshepsut was a women Pharaoh.  Her tomb is an amazingly long ramp leading to a temple that has been cut out of a mountain.  Pharaoh Akhenaten tried to start a new religious tradition of worshipping only one God.  Worshipping one God is called monotheism.  This did not sit well with the polytheistic population that has honored many gods for thousands of years.  After Akhenaten's death his monuments were destroyed and his name was removed from the list of kings. Years later he was often referred to as, "the enemy". Akhenaten's son would also become famous, thousands of years later when his tomb was found perfectly preserved. His name was Pharaoh Tutankhamen--he is known and King Tut. He became Pharaoh at age 9 or 10 and ruled for only 9 years.

taking part in this, believers symbolically shared in the victory paid for – and won by - Christ over the power of sin (known as the atonement).

Celebrating mass

Everyone

sermons that people learnt Bible

few laypeople had direct access to the text of the Bible.

Sermons had several functions:

The idea of purgatory was based on the obvious fact that most people are neither extremely good nor extremely evil.

To educate people about the Christian faith and the Church’s rituals and practices To make known the contents of the Bible, the Church’s interpretations of the Bible, and also the lives of saints To help people understand the system of confession and to prepare for their confession to their parish priest in a careful way To explain about sin and virtues.

Venial sins were relatively small faults and shortcomings. The individual could confess these privately to God Mortal, or ‘deadly’, sins were wrong acts committed consciously and deliberately. They therefore placed the soul in serious danger and the Church taught that, in normal circumstances, they could only be forgiven through the sacrament of penance and by confession to a priest.

believed that being too absorbed in the life of the body and material things was bad for the soul.

The simple food monks and nuns were supposed to keep to The regular fasting periods that all Christians observed during the Church year.

repentance means the person wants to turn away from undertaking wrong behaviour and actively decides to do so henceforward.

The priest would hear the confession and talk to the penitent to ascertain that they truly repented and resolved to do better in future. The priest then pronounced absolution, declaring that Christ forgave the sins of the truly repentant.

Penance  This means an action which demonstrates that someone has repented of their sins. The priest might order a penitent, for example, to do one of the following for a period: Go on pilgrimage Fast (abstain from food) Donate alms to the Church or the poor.

knowledge of the Christian faith came, above all, from preaching and teaching, week by week from parish priests.

people,

would not go straight to heaven after death either. Instead, they would spend a period in the spiritual state of purgatory where they could ‘pay for’ / atone for sins committed on earth

It was believed that, whilst still alive, people could undertake deeds that would speed either themselves (in the future) or a dead friend or relative through this process