Questions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 4

Questions - Essay Example In the development of their forms of government, Egypt went straight from pre-civilization to large government units, was more centralized and authority was concentrated in a divine Pharaoh. On the other hand, Mesopotamia passed through a city-state phase, authority was more dispersed and governance was exercised through councils and participatory institutions. In form of writing, both cultures developed complex forms of writing which was monopolized by the priestly class. However, Mesopotamia developed the cuneiform alphabet while Egypt had its hieroglyphics, a more pictorial form based on simplified pictures of objects abstracted to represent concepts or sounds. Mesopotamian writing material was comprised of clay tablets and animal skins, and produced an epic literary tradition. Egypt used the papyrus formed from reeds, but used it more for record keeping (Robert Guisepi, The Origins of Civilizations, 2007). In great part, Mesopotamia developed a more advance level of science and mathematics than Egypt, although Egyptians were first to determine the length of the solar year and developed a science of medicine. Egyptian civilization was not centered on science, however, but on religion, the worship of many gods, magical rituals, and obsession with life after death (Cornelius Petrus Tiele, Comparative History of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian Religions, 1882). While their early religions developed from an awareness of nature and the environment, their attitudes differed greatly. Egypt, prosperous and harmonious and consistent with its attribution as the â€Å"gift of the Nile,† regarded their gods positively with the promise of a joyous afterlife. Mesopotamian religion was gloomy and bleak, and their prayers reflected the absence of a personal relationship with their gods and goddesses who were suspicious of humans and frequently sent calamities to underscore their humanity – as in the message of the Gilgamesh epic (Michael Streich,

In Egypt did the Arab Spring change gender roles and notions of where Essay

In Egypt did the Arab Spring change gender roles and notions of where women belonged in society Were women in Egypt better off before or after the Arab Spring - Essay Example Women’s rights in Islam-dominated nations have long been stifled by conventional Islamic culture which believes men should be in charge of women hence the press for women’s rights was a welcomed result of the Arab Spring revolts all through the Middle East and North Africa in ultra-traditional and Islam-dominated Egypt. From the protests, women hoped to gain from the altering relations of authority in society. That of course is a course that takes an extended amount of time to address (Ramdani 20-21) As the freethinking sought very much to drive forward for additional evident and more active roles for the female gender, some Islamist groups were not as keen about the notion of stirring in that path. It is without a doubt, there were unlike expectations on the roles played by women were to change due to the Arab Spring. In the present day, Egypt, the conventional patriarchal society is slowly fading without much of the democratic spirit of the Arab Spring. In its place, the thousands of females who contributed greatly to the fall of President Hosni Mubarak are now marginalized, if not ignored. Egypt has swapped a western-based, secular autocracy with an Islamic version, but for most the spot on headline figure was the trivial 12 seats for the female gender out of the possible 498. This translates into a 2.4% representation of women compared to the already low UN world average of 19%. All the 13 presidential race candidates were men (Ramdani 23-24) Women have, in general, been left out before and after the Arab Spring. In Egypt, it has been seen that the rights of women are all the time more under attack and violence against them on the rise. Women are to a less extent been involved in political parties and play an even smaller part in elections. The gap between women and men voting in Egypt has declined following the uprising. Currently, there are new worrying measures