Essay about Egypt and Mesopotamia

Words: 1020
Pages: 5
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Kate Ward
Per. 3
9/11/13
River Valley civilizations were the first to occur throughout time. Two of the most advanced were Egypt and Mesopotamia. Although both had a male dominant government that was supported by a patriarchal king or leader, Egypt had a strong, centralized government whereas Mesopotamia was decentralized and was based upon small city-states operating independently. To add, Egypt was also classified as self sufficient rather than Mesopotamia who relied on trade because of unstable agriculture. Due to Egypt surpassing Mesopotamia in areas such as governmental structure, self sufficiency, and cultural traditions, Egypt proves to be the more advanced society. Environmental and geographical factors highly influenced …show more content…
This proves to be an important characteristic because at the time, majority of people followed religion. For it to be tied with government is momentous because it affected the behavior of residents making things operate more smoothly and progressively as well as keeping governmental structure in tact. Mesopotamia however, was decentralized and that could have ignited negative effects to its own civilization. For instance, one city-state could be exceeding over other city-states and that could then lead to possible tension within the own land. To add on, leaders were not seen as the ultimate ruler or authority figure, which didn’t really lead to a stable, centralized flow compared to Egypt where everyone was unified as a whole and on the same page. To tie it all together, religion played a role in the overall governmental rule and structure to both civilizations, but Egypt proved to be more dominant as opposed to Mesopotamia. In political views, both Egypt and Mesopotamia shared the same concept of having a patriarchal leader or king with god-like attributes. To begin with, Mesopotamian rulers were anthropomorphic (half mortal and half divine) as well as being representatives of the gods so they weren’t looked upon as big as the Egyptian pharaohs who were viewed as a much higher ruler of power. The rulers then tie in with the type of government each civilization have. The type of government one has is important because it
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