Why are empires and civilizations so intent on producing works of artistic and cultural significance? These works help to ensure the legacy of an empire. How was Phoenicia organized? It was a collection of city-states.

Many of Egyptian’s ancient building was created for religious celebrations or simply for artworks. The spynx for example, was created as a part of tombs and temples that were used for important celebrations. The Pharaoh also use Tomb art as a celebration of death to wish the deceased good luck in the after world.

Commissioning magnificent buildings and statues, obelisks and temples gave pharaohs the opportunity to show off their wealth and generosity to their own people, as well as to visitors from other lands. The pharaohs also controlled the news through carvings on the temple walls – an early form of propaganda.

Egyptian hieroglyphs were different from letters in the English alphabet because each hieroglyph does not represent a sound, as it does a letter of the alphabet, but a word or even an expression.

Jean-Francois Champollion

The hieroglyphic script originated shortly before 3100 B.C., at the very onset of pharaonic civilization. The last hieroglyphic inscription in Egypt was written in the 5th century A.D., some 3500 years later. For almost 1500 years after that, the language was unable to be read.

Because of their pictorial form, hieroglyphs were difficult to write and were used only for monument inscriptions. They were usually supplemented in the writing of a people by other, more convenient scripts. Among living writing systems, hieroglyphic scripts are no longer used.

Hieroglyph, meaning “sacred carving,” is a Greek translation of the Egyptian phrase “the god’s words,” which was used at the time of the early Greek contacts with Egypt to distinguish the older hieroglyphs from the handwriting of the day (demotic).

Hieroglyphs are written in rows or columns and can be read from left to right or from right to left. You can distinguish the direction in which the text is to be read because the human or animal figures always face towards the beginning of the line. Also the upper symbols are read before the lower.

The politics of Egypt are based on republicanism, with a semi-presidential system of government. The current political system was established following the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.

No remains of written laws have been found. However, since the ancient Egyptians loved lists and wrote everything down they could, it would not surprise historians to learn they did write down (codify) some laws at least. The ancient Egyptians did have a court system. There was a lower court and a high court.

Under the various iterations of the Constitution of Egypt following the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, the president is also the supreme commander of the Armed Forces, and head of the executive branch of the Egyptian government. The current president is Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in office since 8 June 2014.