Page 94 - ABCTE Study Guide_Neat

Egypt

People began living in villages in the Nile river valley as early as 5000 BC, and the
Pharaoh Menes is credited with uniting the people of lower and upper Egypt circa 3200
BC. Memphis was the capital of this Egyptian empire.

Vintage photograph of the Great Pyramid of Giza

The Great Pyramid of Giza in the photo above was completed around 2500 BC and was
a tribute (or burial spot) for the Fourth Dynasty king Khufu, also known by his Greek
name Cheops.

Incredibly, thirty successive dynasties ruled Egypt until the Persian invasion in 341 BC.
The land was also conquered by the Greeks, the Romans, and Muslim Arabs, who
introduced Islam to the region in the seventh century. The Muslims ruled for another six
centuries before falling to the Ottoman Turks in 1517.

The Indus Valley
This NASA image
provides a good look at
Another of the great ancient civilizations, the Indus the life-giving Nile.
Civilization covered the area that is now Pakistan and parts of modern-
day Indiaand Afghanistan. The Indus cultures relied on the Indus River for
sustenance, and some historians have suggested the existence of
another now-dried-up river running parallel to the Indus.

Of all the ancient cultures, the Indus may be the most mysterious. While it
is known that this civilization flourished in the second century BC, not
much is known about the language or culture of the peoples who lived
there in comparison with Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China.

What is known are points to a highly-organized and urban culture: cities
comprised thousands of residents, streets that were laid out in grids, and
sanitation systems that were built using precise measurements.

NASA satellite image of Indus River valley