what are some of the legacies of ancient egypt

Some of these myths passed from Egypt to Rome, and have had a direct effect on the development of modern religious belief. What happens after death? How was the world created? Where does the sun go at night? Lacking any real scientific understanding they answered their own questions with a series of myths and legends designed to explain the otherwise inexplicable. Preserved in their writings and coded into their artwork the Egyptians asked, and answered, the questions that all societies ask.

Combined, and tinged with the glamour bestowed by some of the world's most flamboyant archaeologists, they make an irresistible package. Individually these would all be good reasons to study any ancient civilisation. Those who have been bitten by the Egyptology bug cite a variety of reasons for their addiction - the beauty of the art, the skill of the craftsmen, the intricacies of the language, the certainties of the priests - or even a vague, indefinable feeling that the Egyptians came as close as is humanly possible to living a near-perfect life. Why then do so many people choose to concentrate on Egypt? What does the culture of ancient Egypt offer the modern world that other cultures - those of Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, or China - do not? All therefore are equally deserving of study. Publishers and television producers are happy to invest in ancient Egypt because they know that there will be an appreciative audience for their work, and every new book, each new programme, attracts more devotees to the subject.Īll ancient civilisations have contributed in some way to the development of modern society. This obvious interest has become self-fulfilling. To emphasise the point, University Egyptology courses are full to bursting, and night school classes are attracting increasing numbers of people happy to spend their leisure hours studying the far distant past. And the Egyptian galleries of our museums are packed with visitors, while the galleries dedicated to other ancient cultures remain empty. At a time when Latin and ancient Greek are rapidly vanishing from the school curriculum, more and more people are choosing to read hieroglyphs in their spare time. Some 2,000 years on, however, the ancient hieroglyphs have been decoded and Egyptology - the study of ancient Egypt - is booming.

Only the decaying stone monuments, their hieroglyphic texts now unreadable, survived as silent witnesses to a long lost civilisation. The unique culture was quickly buried beneath successive layers of Greek, Roman and Arabic tradition, and all knowledge of Egypt's glorious past was lost.

What are some of the legacies of ancient egypt