Sociology

Civilization is the change of the human society into modern urban life. It is derived from the Latin word civitas which means city. The story of civilization is different in the various parts of the world. A few thousand years ago, there were no permanent settlements for human beings and were considered uncivilized. Mesopotamia and Egypt are two ancient civilizations with a sharp contrast. Civilization begun in Mesopotamia and went down to the Nile river in Egypt. In my essay, I will compare and contrast the social system of the Egypt and Mesopotamia manner of civilization. (Michael B 1962).
Mesopotamia and Egypt were both farming rich areas that had a permanent rivers water supply that was used for irrigation. This helped to relieve the farmers from the weather tyranny.  As a result the two areas had enough food reserves and some people took other occupations which led to the emerging of cities and thus civilization. (Thomas F 2008)

To understand two things better, the best way is by comparing and contrasting them. This helps to bring out striking contrasts where one society might have led to the shaping of the other. To start with a similarity, both were theocracies, a case where the government was thought to be headed by god and also got backing from a god. There was no distinction between religion and government and so there was no separation line between the church and the state. In Mesopotamia, the king had a duty to build the temples. To signify what a king was supposed to, he could build a very large temple for the people. In Egypt, temple treasuries were used to pay the royal construction workers a case that signified that the temple was an organ of the government. On land issues, where all the land without any untraceable owner was reverted to king Pharaoh this land was administered by the temple priests. (Michael B 1962)

But the king in Mesopotamia was usually a human being with the representation of a god. However, in Egypt, the king was the god for the most part. This was evident through the ceremonies that both the kings conducted.  In Mesopotamia, they had a temple for Marduk, whom they believed to be the creator of the world where the king could annually kneel before his statue and confessed of any neglecting of duties. They believed that the king was the greatest servant of Marduk whom the whole community looked for help and protection from other gods and communities.  For Egypt in contrast, the king was the god Horus, the vegetation god and also the ruler of the land of the dead. (Philip J 2006)

On the after life, death in Mesopotamia meant to cease to exist and also endurance from eternal misery. The Egyptians views were different where the dead were expected to live on a life after death. They used to preserve the dead by mummification they believed the souls of the dead would have some use for their bodies where they painted the eyes on the coffin to enable the dead to see outside. Expecting the next life to be similar with the present, they could bury the dead with all their properties. (Michael B 1962)

Both Mesopotamia and Egypt had a strong civil pyramid construction where in Mesopotamia they were called ziggurats. In contrast, pyramids were used as tombs whereas the ziggurats were used as temples.  The structures were also used for political purposes also. Building of the pyramids meant power and the ability of the king to organize vast labor force. But considering the dead were considered as gods, the tombs were part time residences of a god. The ziggurats were a strong foundation for the temples at the top where god resided. The Marduks ziggurat also functioned as a government center and thus a busy place for the living.

Egyptians were good builders, engineers and architects whereas Mesopotamians were mathematician, physicists, astronomers and medicine. (Philip J 2006)

The Egypt economy was a mixture of the private enterprise and a centralized control, where the king delegated authority to a large group of officials. These included the judges, military commanders, governors and mayors. The highest official was the prime minister who even had more power than the king himself. Egypt had a well detailed law code with the judges to head the lawsuits. (Michael B 1962)
On matters related to justice, the two distinguished between the justice and the injustice. Both societies could praise the king for being a good shepherd for the people. Despite this similarity, there was a contrast however. The Egyptians believed that justice is a countable issue that built into the nature of things. The Mesopotamias did not believe on this, where the administration of justice was entirely practical. The Hammurabi code was the legal and literary classic that contained rulings on cases ranging from commercial law and up to murder.  (Thomas F 2008)

This shows that the Egyptian culture was optimistic whereas the Mesopotamia religion and culture was pessimistic. In this case, Mesopotamians lived in a difficult natural environment and regarded their god with fear and awe. The gods communicated with the human using mysterious languages and for them to understand the divine well, they engaged in various divinations. Mesopotamians interpreted dreams, studied the stars and examined the entrails of slaughtered animals.  The temples were situated in every city. Egypt religion had lesser deities including human, animal, and composite dogs. They even had serpents and dogs that were meant to represent the divine. The temples were numerous and lavish. (Thomas F 2008)

The two societies had different political histories. The ancient Mesopotamia was a land of independent city states that include Babylon and Kish. Most of these city states were at war in history due to conflict between each other. The states were only unified in case of outside invasion where the states were ruled on by the invaders. This however did not last for long. The crowned Mesopotamia contrasts greatly with the calm Egypt where peace prevailed most of the time. The Mesopotamia kings were more often defeated in war than the Egyptian king which makes one to think the Egyptian king as the god. The contrasting political history could be as a result of the physical environment of the two regions where Egypt was harder to invade and thus suffered fewer invasions. Egypt was surrounded by a desert where they also built the tombs making it difficult to cross unlike Mesopotamia. (Philip J 2006)

When the Mesopotamians fell ill, they were set more to reform by magic and incarnations than by surgery or herbal medicine.

The Egyptian kingship was sacred monarchy whereas in Mesopotamia, the king was claimed to have been appointed by the gods.

Considering the gender relation, Egyptian women did not enjoy equal status with the men.  Men had more freedom than women in the ancient societies more so when it came to the legal matters. Similarly, as in Mesopotamia, women in Egypt had the right to trade, judicial rights to testify or sue but a married woman requires a guardian approval. A married woman in Egypt retained complete legal independence where she could even own a property without notifying the husband. Thus Egyptian women had more freedom outside the home. Egyptian writings were developed differently from those of Mesopotamia. They used hieroglyphics that were pictographs for conveying ideas. (Thomas F 2008)

In conclusion, religion and the priests who administered it played a great role in Egyptian culture. This was also the case with the Mesopotamians. The civilization in the two regions had some similarities but the contrast was distinct in their manner of ruling and also in their beliefs. Considering the Egyptians were greatly concerned with life after death, the Mesopotamians were not. However, both regions rested on agrarian underpinnings but Mesopotamia exercised considerable influence on Egypt cultural development through trading where the two societies evolved patterns of beliefs and values that differed significantly.