The Glaring Fact

Agriculture

• Agriculture developed approximately 10000 years ago
• Growing of crops and the domestication of animals
• Change from nomadic tribes to settlements, knowledge of growing cycle of plants: Early agriculture expanded our knowledge of plants
• Populations growth, food storage, work
• Agricultural techniques: sowing, hoeing, reaping, threshing, storing, grinding, baking, brewing, weaving, pottery, etc.
• Surplus food as common goods, private property
• Agriculture and delayed gratification of work
• Religion, change of the seasons, fertility rites
• Artificial irrigation, food surplus, higher populations, early government: “hydrological hypothesis” — civilization arose from the development of large-scale irrigation agriculture; Large scale irrigation agriculture, centralized coordination for management, storage and distribution
• Creation of cities, administration, crafts, trade and labour
• Urbanization and division of labour, specialization
• Priests as administrators and rulers
• Urbanization, class differentiation, slaves, labourers and citizens

Metal, Transportation and Trade

• Use of metal for tools: trial and error (experimentation), material properties (chemistry)
• Use of bronze (tin and copper), guilds and metal working techniques
• Sharp edged tools, carpentry, machines out of wood
• Transportation technologies for food, goods, metal
• River valleys, water transport, sea travel, navigation, astronomy
• Wheeled cart and plough, agricultural expansion, measurement, recording and standardization
• Writing and trade, mathematics and transactions
• Large-scale public works and complex economic transactions, complex mathematics
• Architecture and early geometry, e.g. volume of pyramid
• Agriculture and the calendar, astronomy, astrology
• Medicine, prognosis and case knowledge
• Precious metals, measurement, chemistry

Class Divisions in Early Society

• Priesthood, mathematics, astronomy and medicine, upper classes
• Scholars versus labourers in Egypt, class society and basic technologies
• Benefits of production and labour
• Agriculture, war, expansion, technological progress
• Engineering weapons, siege engines, mining
• Wealth concentration and large civil engineering projects
• Large-scale hydrological agriculture: dams, canals, ploughs, sickles and wheels
• Slavery, expansion, casualties of war, separation of labour from knowledge
• Hieroglyphics, poetry, literature, techniques and technologies