#1. How much time did It take to become a scribe in ancient Egypt? #2. Were scribes among the most highly respected people in Egypt?

#3. What does the complexity of the hieroglyphic writing system tell us about the role of scribes?

#4. How did ancient Egyptians put their advanced knowledge to practical use?

#5. How was the calendar invented by the Egyptians similar to our modern calendar?

#6. How did science and mathematics help advance ancient Egyptian civilization?

1. Most often it was the children of scribes who became scribes. Although some craftsmen were able to get their sons into the school for scribes, it was very rare. How long did it take to become a scribe? It could take four to five years for a person to go through scribe school

2. Scribes were in attendance to record the stocks of foods, court proceedings, wills and other legal documents, tax records, magic spells and all of the things that happened every day in the life of the pharaoh. Scribes were one of the most important functions that kept the administration in order.

3. Hieroglyphs were written on papyrus, carved in stone on tomb and temple walls, and used to decorate many objects of cultic and daily life use. Altogether there are over 700 different hieroglyphs, some of which represent sounds or syllables; others that serve as determinatives to clarify the meaning of a word.

4. Significant advances in ancient Egypt during the dynastic period include astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. Their geometry was a necessary outgrowth of surveying to preserve the layout and ownership of fertile farmland, which was flooded annually by the Nile River.

5. Egyptian calendar, dating system established several thousand years before the common era, the first calendar known to use a year of 365 days, approximately equal to the solar year. In addition to this civil calendar, the ancient Egyptians simultaneously maintained a second calendar based upon the phases of the moon.

6. The ancient Egyptians were an advanced society. They had knowledge in the areas of math, science, and other technologies that have influenced discoveries around the world. Ancient Egyptians used a numbering system based on ten. Vertical tally marks were used to represent the numbers one through nine.