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Egypt had no tension between palace and temple--Pharoah was one of the living gods. King as absolute lord--"justice" is what Pharoah loves. Died only when foreigners gained control and made Pharoahs not look like the master of their own destinies. Abundant food--vegetables, barley, emmer, irrigation. Poultry, fish, game, cattle. It was the granary of the Romans.
Conspicuous consumption--blocks of stone 15 tons each--[pyramids 750 fr. Long, remember made by 100,000 farmers, etc. not in harvest season (during floods) Established a solar year 0f 365 days--divided into 12 months of 3 weeks of 10 days (revived by French Revolutionaries in 1793!!)
Preoccupation with death, and life in another world. Hereditary priestly class. Its art took root nowhere else. Longevity sustained by desert frontiers--temples not fortresses. Papyrus=strips of reed-pith criss-crossed and pounded into homogeneous sheet--convenient, better than stone, cheaper than skin (parchment)--sheet pasted together made books. Quite an elaborate bureaucracy.