| A | B |
|---|
| silt | layer of rich soil from river water |
| cataract | a waterfall |
| delta | triangular area of marshlands found at the mouth of a river |
| dynasty | ruling family |
| pharaoh | title of an Egyptian leader that literally means great house |
| vizier | chief minister to the pharaoh who supervised the business of government |
| papyrus | a plant that grows along the Nile that Egyptians used to make a paper like writing material |
| decipher | decode |
| Ramses II | the last powerful Egyptian pharaoh during the New Kingdom who extended Egypt to its greatest size He made a truce with the Hittites and built many large public works |
| Amon Re | cheif sun god of the Egyptians |
| Osiris | Egyptian god who ruled the underworld and was god of the Nile |
| Isis | Egyptian goddess & wife of Osiris she is seen as patron to women |
| Great Pyramids of Giza | tombs of the pharaohs built during the Old Kingdom |
| mummification | the preservation of the human body at death so that an individual could use their body in the afterlife |
| hieroglyphics | a form of picture writing used by the Egyptians |
| demotic | a simpler form of Egyptian writing for everyday use |
| Menes | first Egyptian king to unite Upper and Lower Egypt |
| Hyksos | foreign invaders of Egypt during the Middle Kingdom they drove horse drawn war chariots |
| Hatshepsut | a powerful pharaoh of the New Kingdom who encouraged trade and peace during her reign |
| Akhenaton | a powerful pharaoh of the New Kingdom who favored the sun god Aton over Amon Re |
| Rosetta Stone | discovered in the 1800s by Jean Champollion this object had the same message carved in three different forms of script |
| red land | sun-baked desert land |
| black land | fertile land along the Nile |
| Thutmose III | Hatshepsut's stepson who took the throne after her reign and extended Egypt's borders to it's greatest extent at that time |
| Nefertiti | wife of Akenaton who shared power during his reign |
| Tale of Sinuhe | folk tale of the wanderings of an Egyptian official forced to flee into what is today Syria |
| Valley of the Kings | desert area where many New Kingdom pharaoh's pyramids were built |
| ideogram | written character symbolizing the idea of a thing without indicating sounds used to say it |
| Jean Campollion | French scholar who deciphered the Rosetta stone |
| Howard Carter | British archaeologist who uncovered King Tutenkhamen's tomb |
| Tutankhamen | minor king of Egypt whose tomb was discovered intact by Howard Carter |
| Nubia | kingdom to the south of Egypt that was conquered by Egypt during the New Kingdom and later conquered Egypt |
| Old Kingdom | time period of Egyptian history from 2575 to 2130 BC a period of great power during which the pyramids of Giza were built |
| Middle Kingdom | time period Egyptian history from 1938-1630 BC a period of turbulence and corruption in which Egypt expanded trade and drained delta land for more farmland |
| New Kingdom | time period of Egyptian history from 1539 to 1037 BC a period of powerful pharaohs who extended Egypts size and power to its greatest extent |
