EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION
· Egypt is called the ‘gift of the Nile’.
· Historians divide the history of Egypt into three periods : the old kingdom, the middle kingdom and the new kingdom.
· The old kingdom is also called the ‘age of the pyramids’
· The Egyptian king was called the pharaoh.
· The Egyptians were the worshipper of the nature and the sun was their most important god.
· The Egyptians believed that after death both the body and the soul live while other people believed that only the soul lives and body perishes. Body was embalmed in spices and then wrapped in strips of fine line. Such preserved body is called a mummy. The mummy was put in a wooden box and buried. The pyramids and the sphinx are the two specimens of egyptianarchitectural excellence.
· The pyramids were the tombs of kings and they contained the mummies of these monarchs. The most imposing of all is the great pyramid at give in Cairo, built by the king cheeps (Khufu) of the old kingdom the great pyramid is one 9ofseven wonders of the ancient world.
· The sphinx is a mythological animal with the body of a lion and the head of a man. each sphinx was carved out of a single solid stone
· The Egyptian script, known as hieroglyphic, was deciphered by Champollion.
· The Egyptians developed a decimal system of numeration.
· The crowning achievement of the Egyptians was the solar calendar.
HARAPPAN CIVILIZATION.
The Harappan civilization extended over a bigger area than any of the contemporary civilization.
NOTE
For details, see Indus civilization.
CHINESE CIVILIZATION.
· The earliest Chinese civilization is the Shang civilization.
· The Shang dynasty was overthrown by the Chou dynasty.
· The Chinese script is a pictographic script. It is remarkable that the Chinese script has changed very little since the earliest times.
· The Chinese calendar – solar-lunar calendar, was a combination of solar and lunar calendar. The Chinese were the first to calculate the length the year as 365 ¼ days.
· In 3rd century BC, the chin dynasty became important. To keep out invaders from the north, he began construction of a wall known as the great wall.
· The hand dynasty followed the chin dynasty in 202 BC and the hand emperors ruled china for almost 400 years.
· The political practices of the hand rulers were greatly influenced by the teachings of Confucius. During hand rule, to qualify for appointment, the young men had to pass through an elaborate system of examination before they were chosen. Such ‘scholar-official’s came to be known as mandarins. The Chinese was the first civilization in history to have a system of selecting pubic officials on the basis of education and competitive examination.
· Under the hands, stalk was a p principal item of export.
· Two main roads were built ac roses thee great wall to carry on trade with the west.
· The two major religions of ancient china are Taoism (based on the teachings of Lao-tzu: b; 604 BC) and Confucianism (based on the teachings of Confucius: 551 BC -479 BC). Confucius was a contemporary of mohair and Buddha.
· Buddhism was brought into china by Indian during the hand rule.
· The great wall is a mightily monument to the building skill, of ancient china. This wall, built of stone and earth to a height of 6 metres and extending over 2400 km.
· The Chinese script was standardized by the chin ruler. The Chinese script spread to other countries also,. It influenced the japans’, Korean and Vietnamese scripts.
· In the ist century AD, paper was invented in china. The invention of paper and its importance in spreading knowledge within the outside paper and its importance in spreading knowledge within the outside china makes it one of the great contributions of china to the world.
· Some of the first historical works in the worldwrre written in china. Each dynasty complied its own history. The pattern of these histories was as the ‘Herodotus of china”
· The water clock, abacus, umbrella were invented by Chinese.
· In the 2nd cent. AD, Chinese invented a seismograph.