ANCIENT EGYPT

Exercise 1. Read the text “Ancient Egypt” and match the headings to the correct paragraphs.
A. EGYPT'S GODS E. LATER EGYPT
B. THE PYRAMIDS F. EGYPTIANS AND DEATH
C. EARLY EGYPT G. PHARAOHS, VIZIER AND NOMARCHS
D. THE OLD KINGDOM
Over 5000 years ago, long before most of the world emerged from the Stone Age, the Ancient Egyptian
civilization was born on the banks of the River Nile. The pharaohs (kings) of Egypt ruled for nearly 3000 years and left
behind an astonishing series of monuments to their power and wealth – not only the great pyramids and statues
visible for miles across the desert, but also the treasures of their tombs, including their mummified remains, written
texts and beautiful objects made of gold and jewels.
1……………………………………..: The River Nile was the life-blood of Ancient Egypt. Every spring, when the snows melted
in the Ethiopian mountains, the Nile rose high in flood and spilled across the fields - not only watering them but
leaving a fertile coat of mud too. Egyptians had farmed this rich soil for thousands of years when the first towns grew
up and the art of writing was discovered c3500 BC. Six centuries later, the pharaohs came to power when King
Menes united north and south Egypt to create a single kingdom with a new capital at Memphis. From the time of
Menes on, the pharaohs' rule is divided into three main periods – the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms – with an
Intermediate Period when their power was weak and Egypt was wracked by conflict.
2. ……………………………………..:Egypt prospered and its merchants travelled far and wide. Egyptian craftsmen made
beautiful furniture and jewelry and mastered stone-masonry(zidărit), copper smelting (topirea/prelucrarea
cuprului) and many other skills. Egyptian scholars studied astronomy and mathematics and made great advances in
medicine. But the period is remembered, above all, for the building of the pyramids – from the Step Pyramid of
Saqqara created by the brilliant Imhotep for King Zoser around 2620 BC to the Great Pyramid of Giza built for Khufu
in 2540 BC.
3. …………………………………………….:The New Kingdom was the age of the warrior pharaohs. For the first time, Egypt's
stability was threatened, with the invasion of the Hyksos people from Asia. King Khamose and his brother Ahmose
drove the Hyksos out of Egypt and went on to conquer Syria, using horse-drawn chariots and sophisticated bows.The
New Kingdom was also a time when queens gained influence – notably Hatshepsut, who was crowned 'king' and
wore men's clothes. King Amenhotep IV, also known as Akhenaten, hated the toughness now expected of pharaohs
and began to worship a single Sun god, in the form of Aten (the disc of the Sun). He had many of the temples to the
old Egyptian gods torn down and built a new capital, Akhetaten, in honour of Aten. He also encouraged artists to
paint unconventional objects such as flowers and birds. But his changes shocked many Egyptians and when he died,
they were all reversed by his successor Tutankhamun. From about 1200 BC on, Egypt was ruled by kings from places
such as Libya and Nubia. In 332 BC, it fell without a struggle to Alexander the Great.
4. …………………………………………….:The Egyptians believed life was just a stage on the way to the Next World, but a
person's three souls would survive only if the body stayed intact on its voyage after death. This is why they tried to
preserve bodies by embalming with oils and salt, then wrapping them in bandages to create a mummy. Mummies
were buried with amulets and a Book of the Dead, containing spells to help them survive in the Next World.
5. ……………………………………………….The Egyptians had hundreds of different gods. The most important was Re, the Sun
god. In the New Kingdom, the King of the Gods was Amun, who was so closely linked with Re that he was often
called Amun-Re. Here, Shu, the god of air, holds up his daughter Nut, the sky goddess arching aver ail. The green
reclining figure is her brother and husband Geb, god of the Earth.
6. ……………………………………………..The pharaohs wielded (exercitau) immense power – as the huge pyramids built to
commemorate them show. They were thought to be descended from the Sun god Re and regarded as so holy that
(hey could only be spoken of as the 'pharaoh', meaning 'Great House'. Pharaohs married within the family to keep
their blood pure. Although the pharaoh had the last word; the country was governed by officials, headed by two
viziers, one for Upper (southern) Egypt, based at governor, whose power varied with the power of the pharaohs.
7. ………………………………………………….The great pyramids built for the pharaohs are one of the great wonders of the
world. There are three large pyramids at Giza, and the biggest, built for Khufu (Cheops to the Greeks), was originally
147m tall. It is made from 2.3 million blocks of stone, each weighing an average of 2.5 tones. In their heyday, the
pyramids were covered in a smooth and dazzling casing of limestone. The labour involved in building the great
pyramids was huge and may have involved as many as 100,000 workers. To build Khufu's Great Pyramid, huge blocks
of stone were quarried, transported and lifted into place by hand every day for 20 years. The pyramid was built up
layer by layer, as the blocks were dragged on wooden sleds up long ramps that spiralled round the pyramid. The
ramps were eventually dismantled.
 Exercise 2. Read the text again. Are these sentences true or false?
1) The Ancient Egyptian civilization was born on the banks of the River Nile.
2) The River Nile was the life-blood of Ancient Egypt.
3) From the time of Menes on, the pharaohs' rule is divided into four main periods – the Old, Middle, Intermediate
and New Kingdoms.
4) The New Kingdom was the age of the warrior pharaohs.
5) The New Kingdom was a time when queens gained authority.
6) The Egyptians tried to protect bodies by embalming with oils and salt, then wrapping them in bandages to
create a mummy.
7) The Egyptians had twenty gods.
8) The pharaohs wielded enormous power.
9) Ancient Egypt was divided into nomes, headed by a nomarch.
10) There are four large pyramids at Giza.

Exercise 3. Fill in the words from the list and then make sentences using the completed phrases.
a) astonishing f) Stone 3) ………………….. remains
b) Ethiopian g) Intermediate 4) the ……………. mountains
c) mummified 5) an ………………… Period
d) unconventional 1) the …………………. Age 6) The New ………………….
e) Kingdom 2) an ………………… series 7) ……………………. objects

4. Match the words with the best definition.

1) a desert, 2) treasure, 3) a pyramid, 4) a ruled; e) a community reigned over by a ruler; f)
kingdom, 5) a pharaoh, 6) a flood, 7) a papyrus, 8) a paper made from the stem pith of aquatic plant; g)
tomb, 9) a government, 10) a chariot the title of the ancient Egyptian kings; h) a huge
masonry construction that has a square base and
four sloping triangular sides; i) a place for the burial
a) a two-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle; b) a of a corpse; j) wealth and riches in the form of
region that is devoid of vegetation; c) the inundation money, precious metals, or gems
of land; d) the system by which a community is
Supply the correct form of the verbs in brackets:
Tutankhamun, also spelled Tutankhamen and Tutankhamon, original name Tutankhaten, byname King
Tut, king of ancient Egypt (reigned 1333–23 BCE), known chiefly for his intact tomb discovered in the Valley of the
Kings in 1922 by archaeologist Howard Carter. During his reign, powerful advisers 1)…………….. (restore) the
traditional Egyptian religion and art, both of which had been set aside by his predecessor Akhenaton, who
2)…………………(lead) the “Amarna revolution”. Because at his accession he was still very young, the elderly
official Ay, who 3)………………………………….(long maintain) ties with the royal family, and the general of the
armies, Horemheb, served as Tutankhaten’s chief advisers.
By his third regnal year Tutankhaten 4)…………………….(abandon) Tell el-Amarna and 5)……………….(move) his
residence to Memphis, the administrative capital, near modern Cairo. He 6)………………. (change) his name to
Tutankhamun and 6)……………..(issue) a decree restoring the temples and images of the old gods. Tutankhamun
unexpectedly died in his 19th year, without designating an heir and was succeeded by Ay. He was buried in a
small tomb hastily converted for his use in the Valley of the Kings (his intended sepulchre was probably taken over
by Ay). (Tutankhamun, King of Egypt, by Peter F. Dorman)
5. LISTENING: Listen to a fragment about Tutankhamen and decide if these sentences are true (T) or false (F):
a. Archaeologists have found the face of boy king Tutankhamen. T / F
b. Forensic scientists have reconstructed a lifelike image of Tutankhamen. T / F
c. An American team reconstructed Tutankhamen’s face in a dark room. T / F
d. A U.S. team identified a skull as being Caucasoid North African. T / F
e. Ancient portraits depict Tutankhamen as a bear. T / F
f. The young pharaoh supposedly had chubby cheeks. T / F
g. Scientists disagreed on details of Tutankhamen’s facial extremities. T / F
h. An Egyptologist said the new images are very similar to ancient ones. T / F