POLITICAL HISTORY UNDER THE PHARAOHS

The ancient history of Egypt is usually divided 6 eras: the archaic period, the old kingdom, the first intermediate period, the middle kingdom, the second intermediate period and the new kingdom. E en before the beginning of the archaic period the Egyptians had taken some fundamental steps in the direction of creating an advanced civilization. Above all, they had begun to engage in settled farming they had learned to use cooper tools in addition to stone ones, and shortly before 3100 BC, they had developed a system of writing known as hieroglyphic. Expert are uncertain whether the Egyptians arrived at the idea of writing on their own, or whether the idea came to them from Mesopotamia. The strongest argument for the former position is that the hieroglyphic system is very different from Mesopotamian cuneiform, but the sudden appearances of hieroglyphic suggest that certain Egyptian administrator priest decided to work out a record keeping system on their knowledge of a foreign precedent. Whatever the case, writing surely allowed for greater governmental efficiency and apparently was a precondition for the greatest event in Ancient Egyptian political history, the unification of the north and the south.