Egypt and Mesopotamia, located in the modern Middle East and North Africa, were two of the earliest civilizations that reigned for thousands of years before the Birth of Christ, and created a pathway for later powerful empires through invention and innovation and greatly influence modern civilization.
Umbrella thesis (Goes from broad to specific) – follow the ACODA rule: Answers the question; Clear, Overarching (not a list), Doable, Argumentative- Geography had a major effect on both Egyptian and Mesopotamian beliefs about gods and the afterlife, methods of government, and distribution of power, but didn’t have as much of an impact on the social class system.
Topic Sentence #1- Religious …show more content…
Peasants in Egypt were not always needed on hand to farm and could carry out other jobs because the flooding of the Nile was very predictable so the Egyptians didn’t need slaves to construct these magnificent structures. Evidence #2: Both Egypt and Mesopotamia had an upper class of landowners, government officials, priests and wealthy craftsmen. The flooding of the rivers caused fertility of the land through mud called silt which created a surplus allowing a class of people to survive without having to farm their own land.
Evidence #3: In Mesopotamia and Egypt women often fell into the same roles as men. They farmed and sometimes worked as craftsmen. Women in Mesopotamia could even become priests. Marital rights defined that the status of women was less than men as evident by laws in Egypt where women were only entitled to 1/3 of property in a divorce and Hammurabi’s Code which stated that if a woman wanted to leave her husband, an investigation is held to see if the woman is at fault or if the man is at fault. If the man is at fault the woman can return to her father. If the woman is at fault she is thrown into the