PaintingsMuch of the early art of ancient Egypt was created within tombs. Their murals, or wall paintings, showed daily activities, historical events, and afterlife scenes of the individual buried in the tomb.The main purpose of tomb murals was to express important values and beliefs. Eygptians didn’t use realism when painting peoples bodies.Faces were shown in profile, but both eyes could be seen. Bodies were shown from the front, making both arms and both legs visible. Finally, artists used scale to show social standing and importance—they depicted the pharaoh as larger than his servants.

Sculptures• Eygptians also created sculptures that were found in tombs to honor

rulers.• Unlike the paintings, these royal sculptures achieved a high degree of

realism. Egyptian sculptures and carvings of ordinary people and animals were also lifelike.

Jewelry and Make up• Egyptian men and women wore a lot of jewelry. They turned gold and

silver into necklaces, bracelets, and earrings.• They also used makeup similar to today’s cosmetics. They applied

rouge and blush to their cheeks, favored bright red lipstick, and used thick eyeliner, called kohl. They ground up a stone called malachite to make a green eye shadow. They probably did not realize it, but the malachite helped protect their eyes from damage from the sun.

Medicine

Like many early civilizations, ancient Egyptians believed that illness was caused by evil spirits. They often used rituals to try to cure the sick. But Egyptian doctors also used herbal remedies and scientific treatments to treat specific symptoms.They used medicinal plants and herbs, made people drink teas made with insect parts, and rubbed animal dung on wounds. Some doctors were also surgeons. They specialized in treating eyes and stomach diseases. Because Egypt is in a desert, the food had a lot of sand in it. That meant many Egyptians had very poor teeth, so there were also doctors who specialized in treating teeth.

Medicine Continued

• Doctors mummified bodies, preserving them for the afterlife. To do this, they needed to remove the heart, lungs, kidney, and brain. For this reason, the physicians’ knowledge of anatomy, the inside of the human body, was very good. The drawings Egyptian physicians made are as detailed and accurate as those in some modern-day medical textbooks. Recent X-rays of some mummies show that ancient Egyptian doctors set broken bones as well as doctors in modern emergency rooms.• Egyptian doctors were so highly respected, sometimes they were

sent to other countries to help them with medical needs

Writing and Reading Part I

• The Egyptians began using pictures as a form of writing. Each picture represented an idea or a word. For example, a picture of a vulture was the symbol for the word "mother." These are called logograms. Logo is the Greek word for "word," and gram is the Greek word for "sign.“• Other pictures were used to represent a sound. A lion represented the

sound “r.” These are called phonograms. Phono is the Greek word for "sound." Using the logograms and phonograms together, the Egyptians created hieroglyphics, a form of writing. The word hieroglyphics means “sacred carving.” The hieroglyphics allowed Egyptians to track their business transactions, praise their rulers, and record their history.

Writing and Reading Part II

• At first Egyptians used stone or clay to write hieroglyphics • Egyptians learned how to make a kind of paper from papyrus, a reed that

grows in the Nile River. They also developed ink and a type of pen called a stylus; these were used by scribes, or official government recorders, to write on the papyrus. For the first time, information could be permanently written, transported, and stored.• Egyptians used writing only for important matters, such as recording business

transactions, writing treaties, setting taxes, and documenting important events, only the scribes and a few members of the royal family and upper classes knew how to read or write. The upper classes did not want the ordinary Egyptian workers, citizens, and enslaved people to have this ability.

Writing and Reading Part III

• In 1799, French soldiers found a large rock near the city of Rashid, which was also known as Rosetta. It was inscribed with one message written in three different scripts. One form of the message was written in hieroglyphics, one was written in demotic script (another form of Egyptian writing), and one was written in Greek. Scholars realized the message was the same in all three scripts and were finally able to decipher the hieroglyphics by using the Greek translation. The rock, called the Rosetta Stone, is on display at the British Museum in London.• Hieroglyphics and Papyrus made it possible for beliefs and ideas to

passed down from generation to generation.

Mathematics

• The Egyptian numeric system was similar to that used by the Romans. Individual symbols were used for 1, 10, 100, and so on. Numbers were created by repeating the number of symbols for each place value. For example, Egyptians wrote “21” by writing the symbol for 10 twice and the symbol for 1 one time.• Documents show examples of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and

division problems. Egyptians also could solve more complex problems using fractions and basic concepts of geometry.• The Egyptian system of mathematics was centered on common

problems they faced and was mostly used in surveying farmland and the construction of buildings. Later this was passed on to the Greeks.

Measurements

• Egyptians bartered, or traded goods. If you are trading two fish for a loaf of bread, it is easy to keep track of what you are trading. But how would you know if one pile of wheat is the same as another?• A standard set of weights is important when you are trading goods.

Merchants agreed on how valuable something was based on its weight. Egyptians used rings, called debens, to weigh goods on a balance scale. Every deben weighed the same amount, about 12 grams, so a deben in one market weighed the same as a deben in another market.• They also agreed on a standard size of container. Jars and chests of the

same size were used to measure out grain, honey, and gold dust.

Measurements Part II

• Travelers and farmers needed a way to measure distances. Because the Nile River flooded every year, farmers needed a way to determine where their fields had been before the flooding.• The Egyptians measured distances and lengths by cubits. One cubit

was the length of a person’s arm from his elbow to the tips of his fingers. It was not completely accurate, as everyone’s arms are different. The architects building the pyramids used rods that were all the same length to make sure no variations affected the construction. They also measured with long lengths of rope that featured evenly spaced knots tied a cubit apart from one another.