| the nobles of the age (just such nobles as the one whose estate and
home we have in imagination visited) gained more and more power until the
Pharaohs could no longer control them. Then in struggles among themselves
they destroyed the Pharaoh’s government, and the last king of the Pyramid
Age fell soon after 2500 B. C. It had lasted some five hundred years. Thus
ended the first great civilized age of human history — the age which carried
men for the first time out of barbarism into civilization (see Fig. 38).
But the Pyramid Age was not the end of civilization on the Nile; other
great periods were to follow. The monuments which these later ages left
lie farther up the river, and we must make the voyage up the Nile in order
to visit them and to recover the wonderful story which they still tell
us.
QUESTIONS
SECTION 5.
-
Tell something of the life of the earliest Nile men and how
we know about them.
-
Trace the steps by which phonetic writing arose. Where did
the first alphabet arise? Write three words in hieroglyphic (Fig.
30).
-
Discuss the importance of the invention of writing.
-
Describe early methods of measuring time.
-
Describe the probable manner of the discovery of metal. Which
metal was it?
SECTION 6.
-
What do the tombs of Egypt tell us of religion?
-
Describe the effect of the use of metal on architecture.
-
Discuss the first architect in stone.
-
Describe the government of the Pyramid Age.
-
Study Fig.
38 and tell how the Egyptian tombs reveal the transition from barbarism
to civilization.
-
Describe the earliest sea-going ships.
-
Make a list of the industries revealed in the tomb-chapel
pictures. Discuss trade and commerce.
SECTION 7.
-
Describe the house and garden of a noble in thePyramid Age.
-
Discuss painting and portrait sculpture.
-
Make a sketch of the earliest piers or supports (Fig.
55). Were they beautiful? Draw a later pier (column) a hundred
years after the Great Pyramid (Fig.
56). Was it beautiful?
-
Describe the roof windows called clerestory windows (Figs.
55 and 271, I) and what they
finally came to be.
-
Give the date of the Pyramid Age, and tell why it was important
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