Mesopotamia Vs Egyptian Civilization Essay

Approximately 3500 years before present, two sister civilizations grew tremendously due to the increase in complexity that the first cities gave. Out of the prosperous Mesopotamian and early Egyptian region, they slowly began to differ in their social, political, and religious practices as they grew larger. These two civilizations laid down the foundation of democracy we use to this day, such as the use of class systems. Their main differences include how they utilized their proximity to rivers, how they viewed political systems, and their ideas on how social structure should be established. The only true similarity shared by these two early civilizations was their founding, and how they incorporated irrigation and trade as the basis to grow their civilizations from. To start off, the first difference between these two civilizations pertains to the rivers.
Both Mesopotamia and Egypt were cultivated right next to rivers, but Mesopotamia had a lot more work to do in order to keep their civilization active. Mesopotamia was right next to the Tigris-Euphrates River, which allowed them to build irrigation canals to bring water onto the land, as well as build dikes and dams in order to keep the water from flooding the crops. This was useful for them as they were able to bring water to the exact area it was needed for, to grow crops efficiently. Even if it took more work for the Mesopotamians to create these irrigation channels, it leads to a more reliable source of food for them. On the other hand, Egypt was on the bank of the Nile River, which floods at the right time so they did not need to build dikes and dams. Although, Egypt used irrigation canals too but not as efficiently as Mesopotamia because they relied too much on the flooding of the Nile. Egyptians knew precisely when the river would flood each year and used this technique to their advantage. They used this knowledge to take advantage of the nutrient rich soil deposits the river would leave after it had flooded. This caused some long run consequences as the Egyptians relied heavily on this flooding, and at times the Nile would not flow enough, which would cause a famine. Although the Mesopotamian region required more work in order to build dikes, dams and irrigation channels in order to grow crops, it was a much more reliable system compared to the flooding of the Nile. Another difference that separated these civilizations includes their opposing political views. Egypt emphasized a strong central authority, while Mesopotamian politics shifted more frequently over a substructure of regional city-states. Egyptian politics also gave them the ability to organize masses of laborers derived from its centralized government structures and strong bureaucracy. Egyptian civilization was characterized by the strength of the pharaoh. The pharaoh was a figure that descended from gods, with power to assure that everything in Egypt went smoothly. Soon, the pharaoh was regarded as a god walking on Earth. This ensured a strong authority over the population the pharaohs controlled. Class systems are another key difference when comparing early Egypt and Mesopotamia.
Ancient Mesopotamia was much closer to a democracy in comparison to Ancient Egypt, which could almost be viewed as a dictatorship. Ancient Egypt consisted of the pharaoh, the wealthy class below him, citizens, and at the bottom were the slaves. The Slaves played a large role in ancient Egypt, and consisted of a majority of the labor force. This labor force is what allowed the Egyptians to construct such monumental building projects such as the pyramids. To construct these massive structures took an astounding labor force of up to 84,000, around 20 years in order to construct a single pyramid. This obviously could not have been achieved without the use of class systems and a higher power. On the other hand, Mesopotamians had a ceremonial center that used leadership to direct skilled labor workers to build it. I took 1,500 laborers 5 years to build this building, known as the Eanna Complex. This is an early form of class systems being used and early Egypt and Mesopotamians used them very differently to build special
monuments. Some factors they did have in common included irrigated agriculture, which was the basis of each civilization's existence. Irrigation involved digging channels for water to flow through them and opening and closing them when needed so nothing gets too wet or dry. This technological innovation is what prepared these civilizations for the emergence of popular cities. Another similarity is the invention of pottery, which helped with storage, transportation, and cooking. This innovation supported villages to trade with each other and keep their city thriving with new goods from other places. The last difference pertains to their beliefs and religions. The Egyptians had a king who was viewed as a god among men, whose role was to make sure the civilization functioned as it should. Unlike the Mesopotamians, Egyptians cared for their dead because of their belief in another world once you die. Mummification was created to make sure the dead was comfortable in their afterlife and were then put in tombs to ensure their safety as they lived another life below the ground. Mesopotamians believed in god's caring for their crops and land as well, but they thought of them as forces of nature. They personified these forces of nature into gods and treated them as humans. The water god is what brought plentiful water to their crops and was treated as the most powerful and highest citizen in their society. Each Mesopotamian city set up a temple to attract god’s so they would live in the temple and protect the city, but no care for afterlife was present like the Egyptians. While there may be many differences between these two civilizations, they both started a chain of events that led to how we thrive today. Their complexity gradually grew throughout the Agrarian by providing us cities, states, intensive agriculture, commerce, written records and many more. These variations include their different political views which might have been the start of class systems, wealth and power. The way Egyptians cared for their afterlife gives us a glance at where different beliefs in god come from and why there are so many religions. Lastly, the smallest changes in where they both lived made them figure out new innovations in order to prosper. Without all of these differences, we wouldn’t have power systems, writing, bureaucracies, or the innovative life we live today.