The legacy of Pharaonic EgyptThe Legacy of Pharaonic Egypt essays

The legacy of Pharaonic EgyptThe Legacy of Pharaonic Egypt essays In his scholarly work,The Legacy of Pharaonic Egypt, G. Mokhtar investigates individuals expanded the scope of their intellectual and technical abilities by contributing significantly to the following areas: astronomy, mathematics, and architecture. Ancient Egyptians used astronomy for making their calendars, positioning the pryamids, and telling time at night. Ancient Egyptians used astronomy in their calendars because there life revolved around the annual flooding of the Nile. This resulted in three seasons, the flooding, the subsistence of the river, and harvesting. Astronomy was also used in positioning the pyramids. They were aligned very accurately, the eastern and western sides ran north and the southern and northern sides ran west. The pyramids were probably originally aligned by finding north or south, and then using the midpoint as east or west. This is because it was possible to find north and south by watching stars rise and set. Ancient Egyptians also used astronomy to create a catalogue of the universe in which five constellations were recognized. They also were able to discover 36 groups of stars called decans. These decans allowed them to tell time at night because the decans would rise 40 minutes la ter each night. The mathematics of Egypt, especially arithmetic and geometry, enabled Ancient Egyptians to be able to count the number of bricks that would be needed to build a pryamid. It also allowed them to find the area of a field, the volume of grain in a silo. Knowledge of arthimetic, algebra, and geometry also proved to be of great importantance in calculating the area of land eroded or added each year by flooding. Probably the most famous architectural structure in all of Egypt, the pyramids are still one of the worlds best architectural achievement, even though they were built many centuries ago. These structures can be as tall as 482 feet (147 m) high. The Pyramid towers over ...