Early Civilizations

Early civilizations formed years and years back. Two of these civilizations include ancient Egypt and ancient Mesopotamia. The mentioned societies had such advancements that people in their time did not really have. Since the regions were near each other, they obtained many ideas from one another. Though they had similar ideas, there were also differences. These similarities and differences included topics in culture, economy, and government and politics. One of the major similarities both Egypt and Mesopotamia had to due with was their culture. Culture played a very important role in early civilization formation. Both of them had a polytheism religion. According to Merriam-Webster's dictionary, polytheism means “belief in or worship of more than one god”. They used gods in stories to explain how nature works since they didn't know how things happened themselves. The reason for this comparison is because the civilians needed a way to clarify how things took place in nature. Another similarity is that much architecture was portrayed religion in everyday life. Even though there was a contrast in the two structures, the pyramids at Giza and the ziggurats of the ancient Near East both had to due with the same purpose, which was religion. The pyramids were constructed to be a resting place for rulers when they died. The Egyptians would also perform religious rituals here for their king so that he would have a satisfying afterlife. The ziggurats were formed to be used as a temple which was thought to bring the people closer together with the gods. Some early civilizations eventually started become more advanced and even created writing systems. Ancient Egyptians had formed a way of writing which was called hieroglyphs. It was a combination of pictures and alphabetic elements. In Mesopotamia, they created what was called cuneiform. This was based on sound rather than pictures. These writing systems were a huge step towards human achievement because they thought of