Mesopotamia vs. Egypt

Despite the fact that both Mesopotamia and Egypt were first developing around the same time, natural forces and the environment caused variations in many cultural developments such as political systems, religious views, and much more. Their biggest differences were dependent on the river-valleys they lived in and how that affected the way they managed agriculture, as well as their view of their gods. One similarity that Mesopotamia and Egypt did have was that both civilizations developed a system of writing and keeping records. The Nile made farming life in Egypt very simple and uncomplicated, whereas the Euphrates and Tigris provided the Mesopotamians with water, but required intensive irrigation designs and hard work. The Nile was predictable and overflowed onto the dry summer soil every year after August 15th. The harvest had already been gathered by this time, and when the river withdrew in early October it gave the Egyptians the perfect conditions to sow their winter crops. When it was time to sow the summer crops the Egyptians used a simple canal system that directed the water from upstream to their fields. The Mesopotamians were not nearly as lucky when it came to natural irrigation with the Euphrates. The Euphrates flooded Mesopotamian land erratically during the late spring, after they had already sown their summer crops and before they had harvested their winter crops. The flooding of the Euphrates essentially offered no benefits, and the management of the canals used to irrigate became labor intensive. The difference of the convenience between the two rivers not only instigated variations in the way they dealt with farming but also in the way they viewed their gods. In Mesopotamia Tiamat and Nin-Gursu were the gods who ruled the water. They were feared by the Mesopotamians, and were considered to be evil. The people of Mesopotamia blamed their struggles due to poor harvests and lack of food on Tiamat and Nin-Gursu. However, in Egypt Hapi, the god that ruled the water, was thought of as a kind and helpful god. The Egyptians thanked Hapi for their food and praised him. They saw life as working with nature, rather than fearing it as the Mesopotamians did. One thing that the Mesopotamians and Egyptians did have in common was that they both had developed an elaborate system of writing; the Egyptians’ form of writing was hieroglyphics and the Mesopotamians’ written language was cuneiform. Both of these systems started off with more of a simple picturesque look using drawings, or pictograms, which represented words, rather than sounds. As time went on both the Egyptians and Mesopotamians began to develop an alphabet where the letters symbolized sounds, which were then put together to make words. These written languages were used to keep record of taxing systems, and excess food. In Mesopotamia the Assyrians wrote down their day-to-day life as seen in the Library at Nineveh and the Babylonians used the written language to establish new laws. The Egyptians wrote the Book of the Dead which consisted of spells to assist the deceased through the journey into the afterlife. Although Mesopotamia and Egypt began emerging around the same time period and within the same general area they were two very different cultures and had few similarities. There were differences in everything from the way they dressed and spoke to their forms of politics and religion. These dissimilarities created two distinct cultures.