From door locks to advanced surgical manuals, here are 9 ways the Ancient Egyptians have
influenced modern life!
9.
Bowling We’re not the only ones who like throwing
a ball down a lane to hit pins!!
Turns out, the Ancient Egyptians liked it too!
And actually invented the game!
How do we know?
Archaeologists found a child's grave with pin-like objects and marbles that appeared
to be used to take down the pins, kind of like bowling.
But, it was hardly conclusive.
Later on, a home from the 2nd century AD was found, built in the Roman style.
Archaeologists found evidence of a spacious room with a long lane and two stone balls!!
Furthermore, there was a hole in the middle of the lane that seemed to collect certain
sized bowling balls that were also found in the residence.
They have even found hieroglyphics that depict an Egyptian holding a ball just like we would
when we bowl.
So yeah...Egyptians helped create bowling.
It may not be their biggest contribution to modern society but they need to have fun too!
Bowling has had a major impact on the world.
There are tons of people who love to bowl, it's a sport that's pretty easy to get into
and play with others with only minimal skill required!
And do you remember Wii Sports?
Bowling was the best part about that game!
I rest my case.
8.
Door Locks When you leave your house for the day, the
last thing you do, is lock your doors!!
And if you want to thank someone for that door lock, you can start with the Egyptians.
Actually, I take that back, you can start with the Assyrians, since they were the ones
who actually invented it.
But some have said that Egypt pulled a Steve Jobs, and took the basic design, improved
it, and made it super popular with everyone!
The earliest device was created around 4,000 BC. and was a pin-tumbler lock.
The biggest ones were up to 2 feet long!!
They had wooden pegs and wooden keys and then later were made out of various metals.
This was quite the advancement at the time, and it was the beginning of home security
that didn't require a hired guard or an animal.
Which we can all appreciate!
Eventually, not unlike wigs, the idea of the door lock caught on with other nations and
cultures, and it soon became an accepted part of (at the time) modern society!
While the Romans developed their own locks made out of metal, they were much easier to
pick than those used by the Egyptians!
And now for number 7 but first if you are a returning subscriber welcome back!!
If you are new here be sure to subscribe and click the notification bell so you dont miss
out on the latest videos!
7.
Toothpaste Even back in the ancient world, dental hygiene
was very important.
The Egyptians weren't the first to come up with solutions to fix their teeth, but it
seems like they were the first to create a substance to use on teeth to improve their
health.
The first toothpaste!
In fact, certain Egyptian tombs actually had toothbrushes inside, and documents were found
that revealed the recipe for their toothpaste.
Want to know what they used?
They would crush rock salt, mint, dried iris flower, and some pepper to create a powder.
By the writers account, his gums actually bleed after using it, but his mouth and breath
felt fresher.
Hopefully his gums stopped bleeding over time!!
Even though they had this nice concoction, Egyptians still had a lot of tooth problems.
Their teeth were all worn down from eating hard, non-organic matter found in their bread,
like sand and grit that would break down their enamel.
Egyptians also had a kind of mouthwash that they would chew up and spit out.
There is even evidence of early forms of braces!
6.
Glass Making While we don’t really know who the first
humans were to make glass, the Egyptians were some of the first to use it in their art and
culture.
The Mesopotamians were making and selling glass beads as far back as 2500 BC out of
silica-sand, lime, and soda.
Then, Egypt started using the same methods and improving on them.
They began to make vases with glass, and dedicated them to the Pharaohs at the time.
They even learned how to master the art of Red Glass, which is one of the most challenging
colors because you needed a place without oxygen to make it.
1000 years later they were making pure, translucent glass during the New Kingdom, once they expanded
in the Middle East.
Full scale glass making started when Thutmose II (1479-1425 BC) captured some expert glass
makers and forced them create things for him.
Between Egypt and Mesopotamia, the use of glass as an artform expanded and glass was
considered a semi-precious stone, often controlled by royalty and given as gifts.
5.
Wigs If there's one thing we can all agree, it's
that no matter the place or time period, we human beings can get very vain at times.
We often pride ourselves on our looks, and when we're not looking our best we do what
we have to in order to "make ourselves look better".
So it may be a surprise that the concept of wigs actually came from Egypt.
But here's the twist, wigs from Egypt weren't meant to be just a fashion statement, or a
way to make themselves prettier.
It was, in fact, a way to save themselves from head lice!
Many people would shave their head to prevent lice and then wear wigs instead.
It was much more practical, and they could be fashionable too.
Another reason was to protect them from the sun.
A shaved head outside all day would pretty much just roast, but you could also protect
your head from the sun by wearing a wig!
There were many different kinds of wigs, and the upper class of Egypt had wigs made out
of their own hair!
Or someone else's should they feel the need.
The more money, the more choices!
4.
Paper Here's another one that needs clarification.
True paper was made by the Chinese in 100 B.C.
However, the true ancestor to paper was papyrus, and that was made by the Egyptians in 3000
B.C. Funnily enough, this was the first true evolution of writing in terms of what material
was actually written on.
Earlier civilizations would carve things into stone which was very time consuming.
Eventually, the Egyptians came up with papyrus, and the world was never the same again.
Lightweight, easy to write on (via a Reed Pen that they also invented), and just plain
workable, papyrus became instrumental in Egypt's culture.
Not to mention, it became one of their biggest exports.
They carefully guarded the secrets of papyrus so that Europe and China would continue to
purchase it.
Eventually, Europe made vellum and parchment, and China made paper.
The world was never the same!
3.
The Alphabet It’s one of the first things that we learn!
It's the building block of language in many ways, and it's instrumental in the learning
process.
But that begs the question, where did the concept of the Alphabet come from?
Ta da!!
Egypt!
You might be thinking, "wait a minute, didn't the Egyptians write everything down in symbols?
Like Hieroglyphs?"
And you're right, the Egyptians are famous for their Hieroglyphs, however, because of
how complicated it was to use the Hieroglyph system, the Egyptians came up with a 22-letter
Alphabet.
One that relied on sounds instead of full words.
This would later become known as the Proto-Sinaitic Alphabet, and it acted just like our own.
These 22 letters would be put together to form longer words or phrases.
And each one had their own unique sound.
The method of the Alphabet caught on, and it began to spread from nation to nation.
First with Egypt's neighbors, and then all the way to Greece.
And if you recall, the Greeks helped spread a lot of things throughout the world, including
their own language, which became influenced by the Alphabet.
So without the Egyptians, one of the most basic things we learn as children might not
even be around and learning languages would've been a whole lot harder!
Especially if we are drawing all kinds of symbols!!
2.
Mathematics It's hard to think about the ancient world
in terms of what we have now and what they didn't have then.
It may seem odd that “math” was a thing in the Ancient World, but the Egyptians were
happy to use it in many aspects of their lives.
They even had dedicated math specialists called “arpedonapti” who were incredibly adept
at Geometry.
In fact, the earliest records of someone using Geometry, is from Egypt.
They used ropes to help calculate the area of something, which of course is useful when
you are building pyramids and other gigantic monuments.
The oldest mathematical text discovered so far is the Moscow Papyrus, which dates back
to around 1800 BC!
Furthermore, the Egyptians knew how to do both multiplication and division.
Even though we don’t do it the same way, many of their methods do still apply.
As if that weren’t enough, the way they did it was actually a bit more user-friendly,
and some even used styles that are commonly found in computer coding today.
Still not impressed?
Well the Egyptians also invented Fractions!
There's tons of proof showing that Egyptians knew and used the basic concept of fractions,
even creating complex fractions to help in more difficult situations.
Without it their success in engineering, astronomy, and administration wouldn’t have been possible.
1.
Medical Literature While medicine was clearly not invented by
the Egyptians, the Egyptians were the first, or at the very least one of the first, to
actually document how they treated people.
The first known medical manual is the Edwin Smith papyrus of Ancient Egypt.
Early medical traditions were recorded in Babylon, China, Egypt, and India but they
were mostly recipes or explanations rather than a comprehensive manual.
The detail that was put into these ancient recorded logs is what makes them special.
And the fact that they have survived for so long!
The Edwin Smith papyrus was discovered in 1862 and is a copy of an earlier text from
around 3000 BC.
The Papyrus is divided into 48 cases describing traumatic injuries and the process of analytical
thinking for the physician.
These logs were the first medical documents to not rely on supernatural aspects of life
or magic.
They did it purely on what they knew would work, or based on trial and error.
Logic and deductive reasoning began to take over the medical field.
Thanks for watching!
Which one was your favorite?
Let us know in the comments!
Be sure to subscribe and see you next time!