You are learning about ancient Egypt, because it is the best known and most popular of the early civilisations that grew up over 5,000 years ago. This was the time when people changed from being hunter gathers to living in large, organised settlements. In the case of Egypt the people were brought together under one king, the pharaoh, and were capable of building pyramids and temples which still stand today, close to the all-important river Nile.
We know so much about the daily lives of the ancient Egyptians – we can read their words, meet their families, feel their clothes, taste their food and drink, enter their tombs and even touch their bodies – that it seems that we almost know them. Ancient Egypt is definitely one of the earliest civilisations to have left written, pictorial and archaeological records of its culture, including medicine, mathematics, and astronomy that allows us to know so much of a civilisation that existed 5,000 years ago.
