Does Ancient Egypt really meet the criteria for a “civilization”? A civilization is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as an “advanced state of human society, in which a high level of culture, organization and government have been reached. Ancient Egypt came into existence over 5000 years ago and lasted for nearly 3000 years before it fell in 30 BC. It is located in North Eastern Africa, and bordered by Libya, Sudan, Jordan and Israel. Its townships were heavily dependent on the Nile river because of its rich, fertile soil and plentiful supply of water. Ancient Egypt was certainly a successful civilization for the following strong reasons: A variety and ranking of social positions, writing and a system of notation and It’s own unique and specified religion. …show more content…
The ancient Egyptians had three types of writing used for the 3500 years it was in existence, called Hieroglyphic, Hieratic and Demotic. Each script had increasing levels of difficulty, but all were based on the hardest and most famous type of script, Hieroglyphs. Only a small portion of the population, called scribes, used hieroglyphs because they were difficult and time consuming to create. Hieroglyphs had over 700 unique pictures and symbols, called glyphs, that represented ideas and feelings as well as objects. Their numbers grew in the last few centuries due to an interest in writing more religious documents. Hieroglyphs were not just limited to religious documents, though. Civil officials also used them to record calculations and to document important historical events, and priests used them to write down prayers and magical