19th March, 2020: Vedant Sharma
In this lecture, we got a deeper insight into the Egyptian Civilization and the different beliefs and culture that the people followed. We also got to know about how other civilizations in a way or so, were dependent on the Egyptian Civilization, making it one of the most important civilizations.
The earliest mention of this civilization was in the Old Period. It consisted of four periods, namely, ‘Old’- ‘Middle’- ‘New’- ‘Late’. There existed intermediate periods in between these where things would go bad but come back together. The later half of this civilization marked Alexander’s invasion of Egypt.
Water is important for any civilization to thrive. Settled on the banks of the river Nile, Egypt had abundance of water. Also, the land in this area was very fertile which led to good farmlands. They would therefore always indulge in trading because they had plenty of grains unlike other civilizations.
The people in the Egyptian Civilization had many Religious Beliefs. They considered Osiris to be the God of the Dead. He was not their king but he ruled them. Osiris became the king of the God in Egypt. Set, his brother, being jealous, killed Osiris and cut him into forty – eight parts. Isis, the wife of Osiris and Horus, their son, ran away from Set. Nephtys was a goddess who helped them. Isis and Horus lived among people and became popular. Isis and Nephtys brought Osiris’ body parts together and lay it on the table. As his body was lying there, each God came to him and gave him a boon to bring him back to life as a king. This process was known as Mummification. And later led to burial rights. After this Osiris went back to the ‘realm of the dead’.
Maat meant Order. It was upheld by the Gods. Maintaining this lay with the Pharoahs. Pharoah was the incarnation of God, living and treated as the God, in the temples of Egypt. It was believed that whatever happened to the Pharoah, happened to God but when a Pharoah died, he moved on to a new life.
Eventually, Horus challenged Set over the river Nile and fought in every way possible. Finally, Horus defeated Set. Horus restored Maat and told the priests that it was their responsibility to maintain it. After this, Egypt started to expand.
They believed that everything happened in a cycle and everything was cyclical in nature. They also believed that when a person dies, his soul gets transferred to a place, depending on whether he was good or bad. The Egyptians did not write down anything as they believed that anything they would write would come true. They also had a belief that whatever happened in heaven, would happen on earth.
A vivid discussion on this civilization helped me in understanding it in detail. The stories behind all the happenings in Egypt, made it even more interesting and we could also understand how everything connected to each other. This also developed our knowledge about Egypt which was one of the most important civilizations.
The Idealist 