Egyptian people and culture
The first people to live on the banks of the Nile were hunters and fishermen. They settled there over 8,000 years ago and learned to grow crops and raise animals. They also began to build villages and towns. They learned how to sailboats and by 3000 B.C., a civilisation was established.
The home
The ancient Egyptians built their towns and cities from mudbrick and used stone to build their temples and tombs.
Terraced houses were long, narrow and dark, with a front door that opened onto the main street. Each house had two living rooms, a storeroom, a bedroom and a kitchen. Clothes were washed in the canal or the Nile using a salt-rich material.
Many families kept a pet cat as they were considered sacred animals that would bring the household good luck.
Inventions and technology
The ancient Egyptians learned how to make a special type of paper called papyrus made from reeds that grew near the river Nile. The process of making papyrus was kept top secret so they could sell it to other civilisations like ancient Greece.
The Egyptians also invented locks and keys. Some of their door locks were really big with keys that were up to 2 feet long!
Other ancient Egyptian inventions are pens and toothpaste.
People from all over the world travelled to Egypt to study architecture, geometry, mathematics and many other things. To build their huge statues and pyramids, the ancient Egyptians needed a lot of knowledge.
The ancient Egyptians used a decimal system such as 1, 10, 100, etc. To write the number 2, they wrote down two number 1s. To write the number 30, they wrote down three number 10s.
Fun facts
The Egyptian hieroglyph for the number one million was a god with his arms raised in the air.
The ancient Egyptians invented a board game called senet, which is a game similar to backgammon. It involved throwing sticks to see how many squares to move a piece forward on the board.
