Unit 1

EGYPT
Pre-reading
Task 1) In pairs, discuss and decide whether the following statements on ancient Egyptians
are true or false.
1) Cleopatra was not Egyptian.
2) Egyptian women enjoyed a great deal of legal and financial independence.
3) Egyptian pharaohs were tall and trim.
4) The pyramids were built by slaves.
5) Egyptians of both sexes wore makeup.
(adapted from http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/11-things-you-may-not-know-
about-ancient-egypt, 21/2/2018)

Reading
Task 1) Scan the text Ancient Egypt and the Modern World and find answers to following
questions:
1) When was the Great Pyramid built?
2) What was the total number of workers engaged in the building work?
Task 2) Read the whole text and do the reading comprehension task below.

Ancient Egypt and the Modern World

A popular subject
Five thousand years ago the chain of independent city-states lining the River Nile united to
form one long, thin country ruled by one king, or pharaoh. Almost instantly a highly
distinctive culture developed. For almost 30 centuries Egypt remained the foremost nation in
the Mediterranean world. Then, in 332 BC, the arrival of Alexander the Great heralded the
end of the Egyptian way of life.
The unique culture was quickly buried beneath successive layers of Greek, Roman and Arabic
tradition, and all knowledge of Egypt's glorious past was lost. Only the decaying stone
monuments, their hieroglyphic texts now unreadable, survived as silent witnesses to a long
lost civilisation.
All ancient civilisations have contributed in some way to the development of modern society.
All therefore are equally deserving of study. Why then do so many people choose to
concentrate on Egypt? What does the culture of ancient Egypt offer the modern world that
other cultures - those of Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, or China - do not?

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Those who have been bitten by the Egyptology bug cite a variety of reasons for their
addiction - the beauty of the art, the skill of the craftsmen, the intricacies of the language, the
certainties of the priests - or even a vague, indefinable feeling that the Egyptians came as
close as is humanly possible to living a near-perfect life.
Rich legacy
Our fascination with ancient Egypt is, to a large extent, a product of the vast amount of
material information available. We know so much about the daily lives of the ancient
Egyptians - we can read their words, meet their families, feel their clothes, taste their food and
drink, enter their tombs and even touch their bodies - that it seems that we almost know them.
And knowing them, maybe even loving them, we feel that we can understand the very human
hopes and fears that dominated their lives.
Preserved in their writings and coded into their artwork the Egyptians asked, and answered,
the questions that all societies ask. What happens after death? How was the world created?
Where does the sun go at night? Lacking any real scientific understanding they answered their
own questions with a series of myths and legends designed to explain the otherwise
inexplicable.
Some of these myths passed from Egypt to Rome, and have had a direct effect on the
development of modern religious belief. Reading and understanding the ancient stories allows
us to abandon our modern preconceptions, step outside our own cultural experiences and enter
a very different, life-enhancing world.
But, by no means everything about ancient Egypt is fully understood. This lack of certainty
over some issues simply adds to the subject's appeal. There are enough unanswered questions
- How were obelisks raised? Who was Nefertiti? Where is the lost capital of Itj-Tawi? What
exactly are the curious fat cones that élite Egyptian party guests wore on their heads? - and
enough published reference books, to allow every Egyptologist, amateur or professional, the
hope that he or she might one day solve one of the many outstanding puzzles.
Preservation
Egypt's rich material legacy is the result of her unique funerary beliefs, which, combined with
her distinctive geography, encouraged the preservation of archaeological material. The River
Nile flows northwards through the centre of Egypt, bringing much needed water to an
otherwise arid part of north-east Africa.
Their total dependence on the River Nile as a source of water and a means of transport had a
deep impact on the way that the Egyptians saw the world. Their sun god, the falcon-headed
Re, did not cross the heavens in a flaming chariot, he sailed sedately in a solar boat.
Parallel to the Nile on both banks of the river runs the Black Land - the narrow strip of fertile
soil that allowed the Egyptians to practice the most efficient agriculture in the ancient world.
Beyond the Black Land lies the inhospitable Red Land, the desert that once served as a vast
cemetery, and beyond the Red Land are the cliffs that protected Egypt from unwelcome
visitors.

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Believing that the soul could live beyond death, the Egyptians buried their dead in the Red
Land, with all the goods they considered they would need in what they thought of as the
'afterlife'. While their mud-brick houses have dissolved and their stone temples have decayed,
their desert tombs have survived relatively intact, the dry conditions encouraging the
preservation of such delicate materials as plaster, wood, papyrus, cloth, leather and skin.
This wealth of objects, of course, creates a highly biased collection of artefacts. The lives and
possessions of the poor are under-represented, and we can never be certain that the goods so
carefully provided for the dead were representative of the goods used in daily life.
Nevertheless, the contents of Egypt's tombs, supplemented by the illustrations on the tomb
walls, have allowed specialists to develop a greater understanding of Egyptian material
technology than of any other ancient civilisation.
Pyramids and mathematics
Egypt's magnificent stone buildings - her pyramids and temples - serve as a testament to the
mathematical skill of the Egyptians, a skill that stimulated Greek mathematicians, including
Pythagoras, to perfect their work. The Great Pyramid, built by Khufu (Cheops) in 2550 BC,
for example, stands an impressive 46m high, with a slope of 51degrees. Its sides, with an
average length of 230m, vary by less than 5cm. Higher than St Paul's Cathedral, the pyramid
was aligned with amazing accuracy almost exactly to true north.
But the pyramids are more than mathematical puzzles. They hold the key to understanding the
structure of Egyptian society. The pyramids were built, not by the gangs of slaves often
portrayed by Hollywood film moguls, but by a workforce of up to 5,000 permanent
employees, supplemented by as many as 20,000 temporary workers, who would work for
three or four months on the pyramid site, before returning home.
The bureaucracy that we know lay behind this operation is staggering. Not only did the
workforce have to be summoned, housed and fed, but administrators also had to coordinate
the supplies of stone, rope, fuel and wood that were needed to support the building work.
Pyramid studies confirm that a pre-mechanical society can, given adequate resources and the
will to succeed, achieve great things. Pyramid building would have been impossible without
strong government backed up by an efficient civil service. No wonder many archaeologists
believe that, while the Egyptians undeniably built the pyramids, the pyramids also built
Egypt.
Beneath the bandages
The Egyptians were renowned throughout the Mediterranean world for their medical skills,
skills that were eventually passed on to the Greek and the Roman doctors that followed them.
Unlike those of other ancient societies, the Egyptians were experienced in dissecting corpses
because, believing that their souls needed an earthly body, they preserved their dead as
mummies.
(adapted from http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/egypt_importance_01.shtml,
26/2/2017)

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III Reading Comprehension
Task 1 Answer the questions below. Find evidence for your claims in the text.
1) What is our fascination with the ancient Egypt based on?
2) What is Egypt's rich material legacy associated with?
3) Why are the artefacts from the ancient Egypt highly biased?
4) What kind of knowledge was necessary for the building of pyramids?
5) What kind of social structure laid behind the building work?
IV Vocabulary in Context
Task 1) The words in bold in the text are listed below. Match each word with the correct
definition. If you are not sure about the meaning of some words, check the context in which
they are used.

herald, v., successive, adj., decaying, adj., intricacy, n., sedately, adv., align, v., staggering,
adj., dissect, v., cone, n.

a) following one after the other in a series _____________________

b) something that is complex or detailed _____________________
c) to arrange things so that they form a line or are in proper position ________________
d) to cut into separate parts in order to study it _____________________
e) to be a sign of sth that is beginning to happen or will happen soon ________________
f) slowly entering a state of ruin _____________________
g) calmly _____________________
h) very large, shocking, or surprising _____________________
i) a shape with a pointed top and sides that form a circle at the bottom ______________
(adapted from Merriam-Webster Learner's Dictionary)
Task 2) Fill in the gaps below using the words from the task above. Make grammatical
changes if necessary.
a) It snowed for three _____________________ days.
b) We ___________________ a frog in science class.
c) I had trouble following all the ___________________ in the plot.
d) Rain __________________ the arrival of spring.
e) The storm caused a __________________ amount of damage.
(adapted from Merriam-Webster Learner's Dictionary)
Task 3) Find the words and collocations in the text which directly or indirectly refer to death
(e. g. tomb, funerary beliefs…) Use five of them in your own sentences.
Task 4) Translate the section Pyramids and mathematics into Croatian.

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V Speaking
Task 1) Many Egyptian treasures have been stolen or even given as gifts and later displayed
in Western museums or at public places. In small groups, try to remember which the most
famous ones are.
Task 2) Do you support the campaigns of many countries, including Egypt, which demand
the return of their artefacts?
(cf. British Museum under pressure to give up leading treasures,
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/7563963/British-
Museum-under-pressure-to-give-up-leading-treasures.html)

VI Listening
Task 1) Listen to the video on the seven wonders of the ancient world and write down (a) the
basic information about them and (b) what happened to them.
1) The Pyramids of Giza, Egypt.
a) each pyramid ___________________ as a tomb for an Egyptian pharaoh
b) _________________________________

2) The Pharos/Lighthouse of Alexandria

a) the __________________ of modern lighthouses
b) _________________________________

3) Colossus of Rhodes
a) the statue of the _________________________ Helios
_______________________________

4) Mausoleum of Halicarnassus
a) the tomb of the _______________________ Mausolus
b) _______________________________

5) Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

a) the temple _______________________ the Greek goddess of hunt
b) _______________________________

6) Statue of Zeus at Olympia

a) __________________ the Greek god sitting on the elaborate ornamental throne
b) _______________________________

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 7) The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
a) designed to _____________________ a natural mountain landscape
b) _______________________________
(https://www.britannica.com/topic/Seven-Wonders-of-the-World, 21/2/2018)

VII Grammar: Passive Voice (Revision)

Task 1) Find the examples of Passive Voice (Present Simple, Past Simple, Present Perfect) in
the text above.