Written Expressions 3rd Year Classes
Collected by GUELLIL MABROUK (mgbay13.com)
Unit One: Exploring the Past
Topic06:
Write a composition on the achievements of the ancient Egyptian civilization in architecture.
Typical Essay:
People tend to think that Egyptian building styles stayed the same for the whole period of Egyptian history,
from the beginning of the Old Kingdom to the end of the New Kingdom two thousand years later, but that's not
true. The Egyptians built different kinds of buildings at different times, just like any other group of people.
In the early part of the Old Kingdom, the Egyptians built mainly mastabas, a kind of tomb with a flat roof like
a house. Then throughout most of the Old Kingdom, the Egyptians built the pyramid tombs which are now so
famous. Of course they also built smaller buildings like houses and butcher shops.
In the Middle Kingdom, the mastaba tomb came back again, although in a more elaborate form for the
Pharaohs. They didn't build any more pyramids. Then in the New Kingdom there was a lot of building that was
not tombs: temples for the gods especially, but also palaces for the Pharaohs.
Topic07:
Write a composition on the ancient Sumerian civilization and its achievements.
Typical Essay:
The people who settled down and began to develop a civilization, in the land between the Tigris and the
Euphrates Rivers , are known as the Sumerians. About a thousand years later, the Babylonians took over in
the south, and the Assyrians took over in the north, but the Sumerian culture lived on.
The Sumerian civilization probably began around 5000 BCE. In the beginning, they were an agricultural
community. They grew crops and stored food for times of need.
The ancient Sumerians were very smart. They invented, amongst other things, the wheel, the sailboat, and
the first written language, frying pans, razors, cosmetic sets, shepherd’s pipes, harps, kilns to cook bricks
and pottery, bronze hand tools like hammers and axes, the plow, the plow seeder, and the first superhero,
Gilgamesh.
They invented a system of mathematics based on the number 60. Today, we divide an hour into 60 minutes,
and a minute into 60 seconds. That comes from the ancient Mesopotamians.
Some Mesopotamian words are still in use today. Words like crocus, which is a flower, and saffron, which is
a spice, are words borrowed from the ancient Mesopotamians.
The ancient Mesopotamians created a government that was a combination of monarchy and democracy.
Kings ruled the people. Elected officials who served in the Assembly also ruled the people. Even kings had to
ask the Assembly for permission to do certain things.
Law held a special place in their civilization. In Babylonian times, laws were actually written down. But there
were always laws. The laws clearly said how you had to behave and what your punishment would be if you did
not behave correctly. And the laws that were later written down, for the most part, were laws created by the
ancient Sumerians.
Ancient Sumer was a bustling place of three or four hundred people. The ancient Sumerians built many cities
along the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers. Archaeologists believe that their largest city, the city of Ur, had a
population of around 24,000 residents!
Topic08:
Write a composition on the ancient Phoenician civilization.
Typical Essay:
Another great race of people descended from the Babylonian or Semitic stock were the Phoenicians. They
inherited the intellectual and adventurous side of Babylonian life, and through them the use of the alphabet, or
written language, was spread abroad over all the world.
The Phoenicians were earth's first-known sailors and explorers. In tiny barks, such as we of today would
think scarcely safe for navigating a river, they coasted the entire Mediterranean Sea and even ventured far
along the shores of the tempestuous Atlantic. They went not as traders in the ordinary sense, but as bold
adventurers, eager to see new things, resolute to confront and conquer whatever sudden, unknown danger
leaped upon them.
Their home lay along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, adjoining Palestine, the home of the
Hebrews. There they built mighty cities--Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, celebrated in song and story, the richest, most
strongly guarded towns of their day. From these, the daring little ships sped forth ready to traffic or to plunder-
-for the Phoenicians were ever pirates where piracy seemed most profitable--ready to turn miners and dig in
the tin mines of England, or become herders and raise flocks in the fertile valleys of Spain. They were, as the
Greeks called them, a "red people," ruddy of face and probably of hair. The whole world knew and liked and
feared these red Phoenicians, these first ready-witted searchers of the globe.
Topic09:
Write a composition on the achievements of the ancient Indus valley civilization in architecture and art.
Typical Essay:
The earliest big buildings in India were built by the Harappan people in the Indus River valley, about 2500
BC. The Harappan buildings included high brick walls around their cities to keep out enemies. Most of the
buildings were ordinary houses, with rooms arranged around a small courtyard. Probably some families
owned a whole house (and lived in it with their slaves), while others rented only one room in a house, and the
whole family lived together in the one room. The rulers built bigger buildings, like this public bathing house
and a town warehouse for storing wheat and barley, also out of mud-brick and baked brick. Like the houses,
these bigger buildings were square or rectangular, with small courtyards in the middle. They used arches, but,
like the Sumerians and the Egyptians, they only used them underground, as drains or foundations for
buildings.
The major themes of Indian art seem to begin emerging as early as the Harappan period, about 2500 BC.
Although we're still not sure, some Harappan images look like later images of Vishnu and Shiva, and the
tradition may start this early. With the arrival of the Indo-Europeans (or Aryans) around 1500 BC, came new
artistic ideas.
Around 500 BC, the conversion to Buddhism of a large part of the population of India brought with it some
new artistic themes. But at first nobody made images of the Buddha - only stupas (STOO-pahs), symbolic
representations that didn't look like a person.
Then the conquests of Alexander the Great, in the 320's BC, also had an important impact on Indian art.
Alexander left colonies of Greek veteran soldiers in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and these soldiers attracted
Greek sculptors (maybe some of the soldiers were sculptors). Their Greek-style carvings attracted attention
in India - the first life-size stone statues in India date to the 200's BC, just after Alexander. During the Guptan
period, about 500 AD, the great cave temples of Ajanta and Ellora were carved. Scenes from the life of the
Buddha became popular, and statues of the Buddha.
Finally, the arrival of the Islamic faith and Islamic conquerors about 1000 AD brought iconoclasm to India,
and a love of varied and complex patterning derived from Arabic and Persian models. This affected even
Hindu artists who had not converted to Islam. Small Persian-style miniature paintings also became popular.
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