The Values Of Mesopotamia And Essay Research

Like the people of Mesopotamia, Egyptians also believed in myths. However, Egyptians had many cultural differences than Mesopotamians. Egyptians, for instance, believed that pharaohs, royal family, priests and royal slaves were rewarded immortality. Also another myth is that the pharaohs unified the lands of Egypt and balanced all godly forces. Unlike the people of Mesopotamia, Egyptians didn t have written codes of laws. The pharaohs and priests dealt with the law. Egyptian values were quite different than those of the Mesopotamian s. Death rituals is the main thing that separates Egyptians and Mesopotamians. The Old Kingdom of Egypt focused on the pharaohs detailed funeral ceremony. Egyptians carved magical incantations on the walls of the royal burial chambers as a means of assuring the king s safe journey into eternal life (Human Record, p. 18). The Middle Kingdom was a little more realistic and thought anyone could be immortal if they met certain criteria. A new kind of magical inscriptions were written on wooden coffins. These were often a two-part speech, the first spoken by a god, the second by the person in the coffin. The New Kingdom created a new collection of coffin inscriptions. What separated the New Kingdom collection from the others was the fairly standardized documents.

Egyptians had scribes that wrote down the history, everyday life, and important dates and names of pharaohs. Scribes were quite arrogant and thought of all other employment as inferior to theirs. The scribe, he alone, records the output of all of them. Take note of it! (Human Record, p. 23). Many people were prejudice toward the scribes lifestyle. Scribes were noted as early as the beginning of the Middle Kingdom and go into the late New Kingdom.

There are obvious differences between Egypt and Mesopotamia; however, the values are the same. Each civilization needed myths as a way to explain things that were unexplainable. Also each civilization looked for immortality and afterlife. Finally, both had set up laws and social classes, written or unwritten. Without the rivers to provide the basic needs of food, water, and shelter, these civilizations could have never evolved or had higher values.