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Comparative Essay Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia Thousands of years ago, the first civilizations emerged on the face of the Earth. They weren’t as complex and diverse as some of today’s civilizations, but none the less they were still civilizations. Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia are perhaps the most known of the first early civilizations. The two civilizations had both their similarities and differences in their political, economical and religion aspects. Both of these civilizations had somewhat of a political system, using the term “system” very loosely.
They both had a head ruler or a king, and in Egyptian terms, a pharaoh. Both of the civilizations’ rulers believed that their being able to ruling had some connection to their gods. Even though both civilizations’ rulers believed that their ruling had a connection to their gods, the believing was different. The pharaohs believed that they were the incarnation Horus and the son of the sun-god, Re. Both of these civilizations were economically lucky to have built a civilization near and abundant source of water.
The rivers they had settled on had an efficient seasonal flooding which helped their agriculture grow. These floods were seasonal meaning they happened the same time every year and happened at the best time for crops to grow. The two civilizations needed more than just food to thrive. In Mesopotamia, there would often be disputes between farmers. That was one of the reasons the code of Hammurabi was created. The code was the law of Mesopotamia and helped establish justice. Unlike Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt did not have a law code.
The reason being, the people believed that the divine king or pharaoh was the source of everything including law and justice. Almost every civilization has its religion aspects. This also applies to ancient civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Both of these civilizations were polytheistic meaning that they worshipped or believed in more than one god. For all those gods, there was a head god or the main one that is mentioned the most. Temples were built in honor of the gods in both civilizations.
Inside the temples were priests serving and feeding the shrines of the gods. The Mesopotamian gods were based on the elements of nature as where the ancient Egyptians had meaning of some sort to their culture. Thousands of years ago two of the first civilizations emerged. They were not as sophisticated as the ones we have today, but they were very efficient to the people who inhabited them. Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, the first of their kind but yet still had differences in the political, economical and religion views of a civilization.