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Corey Cheung9/28/10 Period 3Ap World History Comparative Essay During the time period of 2,500 B. C , Egypt and Mesopotamia shared political and religious ideas although they had more differences. Egypt and Mesopotamia were both similar in the way that government controlled the irrigation systems. These early river valley civilizations formed by the fertile lands so that farmers don’t have to live a nomadic life. There religious ideas were both similar because they were polytheistic. They had a god for each thing such as the sun god, the Nile river god, or the god of death.
These two river valley civilizations also were similar in their social class structure. Priests were considered the highest social class because they were closest to god and it ranged to peasants who made up majority of the social class. One of the major differences between Egypt and Mesopotamia was that Egypt had a well-organized durable empire while Mesopotamia did not. In Egypt they had a centralized government which meant that there was only one ruler who was the pharaoh. In Mesopotamia they had city states and in each city state they had a different ruler.
This made Mesopotamia unstable compared to Egypt. Another difference between them is that Mesopotamia wrote the first set of laws known as the Code of Hammurabi which was created in 3,000 B. C. This was a legal system which tried to bring justice but it set social inequality. In religious structure, they differed because Mesopotamia believed god was not on earth and Egypt believed their Pharaoh was a god. The reason that Egypt and Mesopotamia were both polytheistic was because they believed that there was a god responsible for everything. They did not think there was a single god who created everything.
Since they worshipped these gods they made sure that the god were pleased and if not the gods will punish them as said in the epic of Gilgamesh. Egypt and Mesopotamia had different political structures such as their city states. The reason Egpyt had a centralized government was because they had one ruler which meant that there is one person who has all the power not several. Mesopotamia did not believe god was on earth so thepower was spread throughout society. Each city state had a ruler and with all these rulers there could not be direct commands.