Those four empires were Assyria, Akkadia, Sumer and Babylonia. The four of those empires were in the lands of what today is known as Iraq. When it comes to religion, Ancient Egypt and Ancient Mesopotamia have both similarities and differences. In the Egyptian culture religion was included in everything they did. Life revolved around religion to them, because life was seen as
Egypt and Mesopotamia were similar and different in various ways. Both Mesopotamia and Egypt developed in a dry, semi-desert region near flooding rivers that gave the soil richness. While the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers ' flooding was violent an unpredictable, leaving Mesopotamians in fear guessing, the Nile River 's flooding was more peaceful, allowing the Egyptians to simply keep track of time to plant their seeds. Egypt is surrounded by barren desert, providing something Mesopotamia didn 't have a protective barrier from invaders. Both Mesopotamia and Egypt had various nature gods that controlled the natural world.
There are a variety of differences and similarities between Mesopotamia and Egypt River Valleys. Egypt has a very complex political organization, whereas Mesopotamia was more organized and had self-governing. Compared to women who lived in Mesopotamia, women in Egypt were more respected and had more rights. They received equal pay for doing the same jobs as men and didn 't have to work at home unlike Mesopotamia, where they had to be a housewife and take care of their children while the men worked outside. Women in Mesopotamia and Egypt were able to buy and own properties.
One way they were similar was that they were both theocracy's. A theocracy is a type of government where priests rule in the name of a god or gods. Another way their governments were alike was that they both had rankings in their governments where pharaohs were at the top in egypt and kings were at the top in mesopotamia and slaves and peasants were at the bottom. Another similarity between the two governments was how laws were made. The laws in Egypt were made by the goddess Ma’at and they were made of common sense and what the priests thought was right and wrong.
There are many similarities and differences in the ways that Mesopotamians and Egyptians saw religion and their gods. Both civilizations were polytheistic and assigned individual gods to everything around them. Also, both Mesopotamia and Egypt has theocracies meaning that they believed their leaders derived their powers from the gods. However, the biggest difference is that the Mesopotamians hated and feared their gods whereas the Egyptians loved theirs. Many examples exist showing the difference.
Africa, during the time of the Ancient civilizations Mesopotamia and Egypt had clash of differences they could not work out peacefully. Taking a closer look at their legal systems show a big way how they compare and also how they contrast. Ancient Egypt and Ancient Mesopotamia both had advance structured law systems. The laws created where said to be influenced by there Gods. In Egypt the Pharaoh was the one who enforced these laws.
The major difference in politics between these two civilizations are the way the government is set up . Mesopotamia set up city-states, individual areas in one civilization, that segregated the community . Each city-state was led by an army general and had their own government. On the other hand Egypt was more unified than Mesopotamia, they had a strong central government. The central government provided the people protection in return they gave him taxes., which were rations of what they produced.
Although people in Egypt had temples to honor their gods, they spent more time honoring their king who claimed to be a god on earth. Egypt’s religious and political view were entwined,
They both had organized and centralized religion. The Ancient Israelites and the Mesopotamians were also different in many ways. One way was that the Israelites practiced monotheism, while the Mesopotamian s practiced polytheism. Also, Mesopotamians laws was based on the Hammurabi's Code.
In the Middle Kingdom, gods were believed to care for all of its people and not just the Divine Monarch (Wallech, 2013, p. 60). The rulers cared for the kingdom 's people which showed a sharp change in attitudes toward people. No longer was the ruler placed on a pedestal and treated like untouchable royalty. Treating citizens as a part of society assisted Egypt in growing and becoming successful in trade, writing and protecting itself. In Babylonia, the people were treated as sacred to the kingdom while outsiders were viewed as alien (Wallech, 2013, p.43).
Although the Mesopotamians and Egyptians of 3500 to 1500 B.C.E. were similar due to social hierarchy and power roles, nevertheless, the differences between Mesopotamians and Egyptians are evident with politics. This is because of the way Egyptians saw opposing countries as enemies and how Mesopotamians saw other countries as trading partners. The Mesopotamians viewed their priests as extremely powerful people, believing that priests were connected spiritually to the gods and worked hard to appease the gods. The priests would use this to their advantage. For example, selling amulets to citizens to ‘ward off evil spirits’ was just a business move for the priests to make more money and keep their power.
Religion played an important role in civilization as government laws and divine kingship derived from it. Both civilizations were quite similar, but acquired some differences unique to each civilization. These differences include the environment, divine kingship, and sense of security from either nature or law. The idea and practices of ancient Mesopotamia originated from the Sumerians. Moreover, both Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilization diffused their practices and ideas to other ancient civilizations like the Hebrews and the Greeks.
The ancient Egyptians believed that people and nature are ruled by powerful gods. As Taylor says in his book “Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt”, the Egyptians believed that the universe consisted of three types of beings: the gods, the living, and the dead. Egyptians connected everything happening in their life in terms of relationship between
(Pg.39) The role of the elites in Egypt was to assist the king. The elites in both Mesopotamian had more power where they owned abundance of land and slaves, whereas the Egyptian elites were more for assisting the king.
People of Ancient Mesopotamia viewed their gods as being unreliable like their rivers. Life was likely better for Egyptians during this period because they did not have to worry as much about survival, whereas peoples
