Talisha Bell Block#3 Compare and Contrast of Egypt and Mesopotamia Essay The plains flood when the

river rises, and is blesses with the riches that brings people merriment. The Egyptians and Mesopotamians were major agricultural civilizations. Though they share the same needs they were different from each other in many ways. Egypt and Mesopotamias economy, political societies, agriculture, geography, culture, and religion varies in more ways than one may realize. In the views of Egyptian and Mesopotamian geography, theyre at variance from each other. Egypt lied on the plains of the Nile River and ventured out into the Sahara Desert a diminutive amount. This had enabled the Egyptians to avoid invasions of her neighboring kingdoms and empires. On the other hand, Mesopotamia was sandwiched between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers; though being in this area has enabled the neighboring kingdoms and empires to invade and constantly endeavored to gain control of the land. Though Egypt was much smaller in size to Mesopotamia, they both share a small number of the same geographical aspects; they both lie on rivers that are imperative to their densely inhabited land, they are also in regions that receive small amounts of rain throughout the year. This has provided some knowledge of how the people must have lived. Egypt and Mesopotamia had their own beliefs and their own religion, but one factor that was similar in their religious standpoint was that they were both polytheistic, meaning they had more than one god or goddess. The Egyptians gods and goddesses

were recognized to be supplementary towards being ethical, mental, physical, and spiritual figures. On the other hand, Mesopotamias major religion had gods and goddesses that dealt more with natural phenomenon and the human body; that were thanked and blamed for natural occurrences and disasters that happened in Mesopotamia: though when you look at the meanings of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian gods and goddesses, they had the same meaning to them as the other society. Government and society is different for every country, this also applies to Mesopotamia and Egypt. In Mesopotamia, because it was a land of multiple kingdoms and empires, there were many styles of political views, and these different political views caused the want of control and to conquer their neighboring kingdoms. In Egypt, they had the upper Egypt and lower Egypt, but they were joined together during the time of pharaoh Menes, they had pharaohs, the kings and rulers of the land that were said to be gods sent to Earth in human form to rule and govern the people of the world. Though Egypt and Mesopotamia had something mutual about their social understanding, they both had a patriarchal society; in which the males were dominant over the women and controlled their households. The education and languages of Egypt and Mesopotamia is similar in more ways than they are different. For one, both Egypt and Mesopotamia established formal schools in their civilizations to educate the people. The main difference between Egypt and Mesopotamia is their forms of writing and their languages. Mesopotamia had developed the first known writing system called cunieform writing, then a later civilization of Mesopotamia had formed a twenty-two symbolled alphabet produced by

the Phonecians. The Mesopotamians also invented the wheel and the wheeled carriage. The Egyptians had their peculiar form of writing called hieroglyphics, they were pictured symbols that would tell a story, and was the ancient Egyptians alphabet. The Mesopotamians had multiple languages for the different regions; their languages consist of Semitic language, Akkadian, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Phoenician languages. The Egyptians language was the Meroitic language. In conclusion, the economy, political society, agriculture, geography, culture, and religion of Egypt and Mesopotamia vary in numerous ways giving them their unique distinctions and aspects, but they also parallel in many ways in comperousion. No matter where they are, the kingdoms of the ancient world are all similar in some way if not another yet providing a sociable contrast to what make each kingdom and society unique in many ways. This shows that though they are human beings living on the same planet, every society are treated differently, usually depending on where they were born and what family they were born into.