The ancient river-valley civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt share many similarities in their social, political, economic, intellectual, and cultural aspects, however, at the same time; both are very separate from one another. Mesopotamia developed first as a civilization without influence, while Egypt built off of the latter to create their own society, hence the shared traits of their educational system, government, religion, and social structure. But, the variable of location also takes place; once the basis of the civilizations were built, they branched off and continued to progress according to their own specific needs, which explains why the differences of the two lay in detail to the economy, intellect, government, and religion.
Both Mesopotamia and Egypt shared certain aspects of their culture, due to the fact that Egypt based their original society off of Mesopotamia’s. The governments of both the civilizations were political monarchies, with a kind in Mesopotamia and a Pharaoh in Egypt. These governments gave the basis to the social structure, which started at the bottom with slaves and peasants, moving upward to the merchants and artisans, then the wealthy aristocrats, with the priest class presiding under the monarch. The educational system was only available for wealthy, upper class boys, who learned to write and went on to become scribes. The polytheistic faith also ran through both civilizations; the Egyptians and Mesopotamians believed in gods and goddesses who ruled over nature. These similarities were due to the basic society that Mesopotamia laid down for Egypt to later build off on; the plain and simple ideas that were adopted to the need of the civilization came from Mesopotamia.
The Essay on Mesopotamia And Egypt Civilizations
Mesopotamia was surrounded by most of the world’s ancient highly developed and social complex states. Mesopotamia was considered one of the four riverine civilizations because at that time writing began or was invented and also, that’s when the Nile Valley in Egypt developed. Egypt was a second civilization that grew up in northeastern Africa, along the Nile River. The Egyptian civilization ...
Although Mesopotamia and Egypt shared their basics of society, the differences lie in the details, where the simple ideas were fine-tuned to fit the needs of the society better. The government for both civilizations was a monarchy, however, due to geographical differences, Mesopotamia was divided into separate city-states, and Egypt was ruled under a centralized, authoritarian government. The economy was also affected by this change in government style, Egypt’s economy was more government regulated while Mesopotamia enjoyed a more free business class. And though both civilizations excelled in science (the measurements of time) and mathematics, Egypt became more advanced in the two subjects- the Greeks would later study them and pass on the knowledge to the Hellenistic world.
The writing systems were also different; Egyptians wrote in pictures, or hieroglyphics, and the Mesopotamians wrote in cuneiform. The religion, although polytheistic in both cultures, differed in the general outlook- the Egyptians saw the afterlife as a reward, a positive experience, and the gods as holding human qualities and able to maintain relationships with humans. On the other hands, Mesopotamia’s religion was dark and gloom, with distant gods and a bleak afterlife. The differences and separations in the Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations were in the details, resulting from similar basis, but geographical and other variances alienated them.
