In contrast with Mesopotamia, a second civilization grew up in northeastern Africa along the Nile River. The Egyptian civilization, which formed by 3000 B.C., benefited from trade and technological influences from Mesopotamia. However, it produced a quite different society and culture. With its values and tightly knit political organization Egyptian civilization encouraged monumental building (Temples of Ancient Egypt, Introduction). With all the monuments we know more about Egypt than about Mesopotamia, even though the latter was in most respects more important and richer in subsequent heritage.
In Mesopotamian society they had the river-valley societies based around the Tigris and Euphrates. Mesopotamia and Upper Egypt are a part of an area called the Fertile Crescent (Life in Ancient Mesopotamia pg. 11). This Fertile Crescent is an area of fertile soil that spans between these two civilizations. Unlike Mesopotamia and the Middle East, where an original river-valley basis to civilization ultimately gave way to the spread of civilization throughout an entire region, Egyptian civilization from its origins to its decline was focused on the Nile River and the deserts around it. The Nile focus also gave a more optimistic cast to Egyptian culture, for it could be seen as a source of never- failing bounty to be thankfully received, rather than a menacing cause of floods. Egyptian civilization may at the outset have received some inspiration from Sumer, but a distinctive pattern soon developed in both religion and politics.
Farming had been developed along the Nile by about 5000 B.C., but some time before 3200 B.C. economic development accelerated, in part because of growing trade with other regions including Mesopotamia (Ancient Encyclopedia, Mesopotamia).This economic acceleration provided the basis for the formation of regional kingdoms. The Mesopotamian economy is similar in that they both heavily depend on extensive trade and agriculture. Other than...