Ancient Egypt Research Paper

Civilizations since the beginning of recorded history, and even before, have developed their worldview and religion based on their location and geographical surroundings. These influences would be evident in some circumstances and in others would seem to be subtler. A prime example of a people group that was molded by the location of the civilization is Egypt. Egypt is located in Northern Africa and is surrounded by and impacted by the Sahara Desert, Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, and running through the civilization is the Nile River. These geographical characteristics play a vital role in the development of the politics, religion, and architecture of the ancient Egypt civilization. Before explaining the developments of these disciplines of

The Pharaoh is the head of the state, source of law, and also a god (Messner, “Ancient Egypt”). The ancient Egyptian people had a secluded and introspective view of their state. This view impacts their politics by causing them to have one major leader, the Pharaoh who is god king. This god king was the child of Re/Ra, the sun god. Once this pharaoh was inaugurated into the office of pharaoh he was now the incarnation of Horus, the sky god. Finally, once this pharaoh dies he become a part of Osiris, the god of death, with the rest of the past pharaohs (Messner, “Ancient Egypt”). This political system is heavily impacted by the importance of Maat and the maintaining of Maat. The Pharaoh and his connection with the gods gave him power that would make all the people obey every word that came out of his mouth. This is out of respect of Maat and the vital importance of keeping Maat (Messner, “Ancient Egypt”). No Egyptian would want to disturb Maat out of fear of the gods being angered and withholding the blessings they have given to the Egyptians. As the impact of location on the discipline of politics has been observed, this same impact can be seen in the discipline of religion in the ancient Egyptian

These gods were given the credit for giving the Egyptians the Nile, the deserts, food, and water. The Egyptians saw their gods as being nice to them; thus, the Egyptians would build them temples, throw festivals, and sacrifice cattle to these gods out of gratitude (Messner, “Ancient Egypt”). Osiris is the god who judges the dead. This judgement would appear as him weighing the heart of the person with the help of Anubis. Anubis is the jackal headed god of death who does the literal weighing, but Osiris is the judge who decides the results of the weighing. If the heart weighed well then the individual would live forever in paradise, but if the heart weighed badly then they would be eaten by a crocodile jawed monster that would terminate their existence forever (Messner, “Ancient Egypt”). This judgement is tied to Maat because every Egyptian wanted to live in paradise, so the Egyptians would try to live ethically to have a good weighing of their heart. This religion does have a hint of ethical influence, but has no standard of what is ethical. This role of Maat in religion moves toward the final discipline that is impacted by their location which is