Ancient Egypt History

This week, we will look at the ancient Egyptians, the first inhabitants of the Nile Valley and the guardians of the Suez Canal since ancient times, and their contributions to world science. In order for what we know about them not to be limited to pyramids and pharaohs, we will try to explain how these ancient people developed and changed the world.

They have the Nile River, the longest river in the world due to their location. Water means life and even civilization in every age. Knowing the value of the Nile, the Egyptians built their civilization around it, befitting the length of the river.

One of the interesting facts to know about Egypt, which lies along the Nile River, is that since the direction of the river's flow is from south to north, the Egyptians define the north of the country as south and the south as north. They have left all geographical information aside and planned their lives entirely according to the flow of the river. The Nile River begins by separating from Lake Victoria from the Ripon Falls near Jinja, Uganda. From here, it flows north for approximately 500 km. Then the river flows through southern Sudan and Sudan and reaches Egypt and flows into the Mediterranean. It takes about 3 months for a drop of water to flow from Uganda to the Mediterranean.

That's why every drop of water is valuable, but if you live in a geography covered with deserts, namely North Africa, this becomes even more important. Because the Egyptians settled along the Nile River and tried to build their homes and all living spaces around this river, namely next to the water.

This must be why the first people genetically grew up in these lands and built their civilizations around this water. This water was in such a vital position that it is a fact that these people contributed to human life, the first known agriculture in the world, and taught the agriculture they learned to the whole world. This ancient society, which enabled us to transition from hunter-gatherer to settled life, protected itself, developed and improved itself when it was near water.

These people who worked with the soil around water were the first agriculturalists to use the science of mathematics in addition to their contributions to agriculture. In ancient Egypt, in order to measure the fields to be taxed, it was necessary to know the area calculations. The Egyptians invented the decimal system for counting numbers. However, they had difficulty calculating fractions with a numerator greater than one. Their arithmetic knowledge was limited. However, they had an incredible knowledge of geometry that would compensate for this weakness. Egyptian geometry appears in the form of area and volume measurements.
The Egyptians knew that the angle opposite the hypotenuse of a triangle whose side lengths were 3, 4, 5 was a right angle. Some scientists think that the Egyptians knew the Pythagorean Theorem. They calculated the number pi as 3.16, which is very close to the real value (3.1416). They could also calculate the area of ​​a sphere, quadrilaterals and triangles using the number pi. While these developments caused the taxes to be collected to be collected correctly and fairly, we were unknowingly learning the early stages of developments that would be very important for humanity thanks to them.

These were the first stages of development in mathematics and geometry. Egyptian geometry was also used in the construction of the pyramids, which were built in 2600 BC and whose secrets are still being filmed in books, films and documentaries. It is impossible to talk about Egypt and not tell the secrets of the pyramids in the light of science and mathematics. The construction of these monumental tombs and the construction materials used here, as well as the secrets of cutting and placing the stones, are still a matter of debate. But there is one fact: the Egyptians, who developed in the field of geometry, carefully selected the burial places of their leaders who were placed in these pyramids.

To put it simply, the tombs of the pharaohs are located right in the middle of the pyramids. Well, don't you think it is incredible to apply this knowledge to such a large structure in 2600 BC? Finding the exact center of a pyramid-shaped structure with only a 1 cm deviation and placing the tomb there. Such small details and the scientific approach used make the pyramids even more exciting.

Of course, they built these pyramids next to the Nile River. It is possible for us to observe everything about humans from this river! They must have been aware of this because they gave great importance to medicine in order to create a healthy society with people at its center. Although they approached most diseases experimentally, a healthy society meant more development, and more development meant wealth. Being aware of this, they took some steps to make people live longer.

Did you know that 80-85% of the medical historical artifacts that lie beneath Egypt and have been unearthed are still used in today's medical world? In other words, all those surgical materials and medical supplies that have been made have hardly needed to be developed since then. Apart from technological devices such as x-ray and MR devices, we still use the methods they found or developed in this field. In ancient Egypt, people had more than enough of this information. As is known, the survival times of ancient times and people were very short due to shelter, security and wars. Especially after children were weaned from breast milk - which is generally known to be between the ages of 2-4 -, the death rates were very high. There were almost no people over the age of sixty. The average lifespan is known to be approximately 29-30 years. This figure is observed to be a maximum of 40-50 even in the bourgeois class.

Such short lives naturally prevented the development of society and created many negativities for sustainability. Let us also remind you that although agriculture was very advanced, there was not much variety and what was available could not be delivered to every person in a healthy way. Despite all their development, diseases such as parasitic diseases, gingivitis and tuberculosis were very common in Egyptians. However, it is known that doctors wrote prescriptions for these diseases, intervened in the organs affected by the injury, produced the necessary tools for them and even performed brain surgery. Since they could heal fractures and open wounds, it can be said that they were very knowledgeable about human anatomy. In fact, when it comes to Egypt, the mummification of the pharaohs cannot be explained in any other way. In order to mummify corpses, it is necessary to have a good command of human anatomy first.

What made the Egyptians pioneers in the field of medicine was their experimental studies. Medicinal plants, animal broth, mud from the Nile River, dirt on the patient's nails, mouse droppings and bread mold were used as medicine. However, the fact that bread mold acted as penicillin caused the medicine to work, albeit coincidentally. It was a great guide for future generations. This treatment method, which laid the foundations of the antibiotics we use today, would develop and help us neutralize diseases in a short time with correct use.

Another reason for these developments in medicine is the mummification process, which is a symbol of belief and immortality. It is not possible to do this without knowing and discovering human anatomy. The only way to do this was to dismember the bodies that were ready for mummification. Otherwise, burying them was considered sinful due to their beliefs. With the information they gained from this, incredible developments were made in herbal medicines and human treatments that will go down in medical history. Mummification is not just the process of wrapping you from the outside. After removing and washing the internal organs, the Egyptians would wash the body with wine and spices and clean it with Nile water. The body would be filled with a chemical element called niton and then covered with sodium carbonate. After the process, they would sprinkle spicy oils and scented flowers between the dried body. Finally, the wrapping was done and it was coffined. Everything they used here would later open our horizons and lead us.

The slowly developing society began to ask itself the normal instinctive questions that every person still questions, such as “why are we in this world?” “where is this world I live in?” When you look at the Egyptian hieroglyphs, you can often see various animal figures and pharaohs, as well as our red planet, the sun. Their devotion to this sun was not limited to culture and art.

The Egyptians were the first to introduce the calendar to the world with their developments in the field of astronomy, studying the sky, stars, the moon and the sun. They actually had two calendars! One of them was the lunar calendar, which was generally used to organize religious holidays. The other was the solar calendar, which was used for administrative and daily life for the people living in Egypt. The Egyptian solar calendar emerged as a result of examining the annual movement of the sun. For this, they chose the Sirius star. The Sirius star is a member of the Canis Majoris constellation, known as the brightest star in the sky. It is known that it was chosen because it is so bright.

The Egyptians understood that the movements of the Sirius star on the horizon coincided with the periodic floods in the Nile River. Later, they realized that this event occurred every 365 days. According to this calendar, a year had 365 days and 3 seasons with four-month periods. He interpreted these according to the geography in which they lived and under the leadership of agriculture and gave names to the seasons such as Flood, October and Harvest.

These people who developed this calendar even went so far as to make a clock to measure the daylight hours. There were lines on the sundial that showed the time of day and it was determined by using the length of these shadows. However, they soon realized that this clock was of no use at night when the weather was cloudy.

The greatest evidence to understand this is that all the travelers and scientists in the world once wanted to come to Alexandria. The biggest reason for this is that it hosted the largest library of ancient times. He saw that this port city would not develop only with trade and laid the foundations of this city of science. When we look at the entire history of humanity, you will see that the emergence of scientific developments is largely dependent on the approaches of societies to science and the support of administrators for science.

This library and museum contained animals, plants, observatories and groups belonging to different branches of science from all over the country. What makes Alexandria one of the largest libraries of ancient times is that it has approximately nine hundred thousand manuscripts. This amount of information can be considered an incredible figure when compared to the population of that time.

A question may come to your mind: Our subject is Egypt, but what was Alexander of Macedon doing here? And why did he build such a library in Egypt? Our answer to this question is of course that these scientific breakthroughs and studies have a response from the people. In other words, scientific developments like these cannot come to life in a way that is far from the truth, such as “I did it and it happened”. This library was established here thanks to the knowledge and scientific developments of the Egyptian people and their open minds to innovations.

Of course, the main enemy of scientific development is ignorance. Written sources are the greatest evidence of where we came from and where we are going throughout history, but unfortunately they are the first to suffer. Although it is still unknown why, the library burned down. The overwhelming majority of the manuscripts could not be saved.

Today, the Library of Alexandria was rebuilt in the area where the old library is believed to have been and was opened in 2002. Although the library, which was built in a size similar to the old library, dazzles with its magnificence, it will unfortunately never be able to replace the old library because it does not have a copy of the valuable manuscripts that were lost.

Although the Ancient Egyptian Civilization seems to have become a material of modern literature and cinema history with its mummies, curses and figures such as Cleopatra, it is actually a huge civilization that even now has a lot to discover about it.

After all, the Ancient Egyptian Civilization is a huge civilization that has ruled for thousands of years, left many legacies to the modern society we live in today, and has become an inseparable part of human history.