Essay:
Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilization developed in S.W Asia, also known as the Middle East beginning in 3,500 B.C.E. Both civilizations developed similar religious beliefs. However, their governments and environments were different. Mesopotamia’s government was not as centralized under a single ruler as Egypt’s. And while both had polytheistic beliefs, their concept of the afterlife differed greatly. The environment of each was different, which may have been a reason for why they developed distinct political and religious beliefs.
Mesopotamian and Egyptian societies developed very different political systems. Mesopotamia’s government was divided between many different city-states. A city-state was made up of an urban center where the elites also controlled the outside rural lands. Sumer and Babylon were two city-states of Mesopotamia. Each city-state was ruled by its own king. Unlike Mesopotamia, Egypt was ruled by a single pharaoh. He was seen as the divine ruler of Egypt. And while the Babylonian King Hammurabi, wrote a code of law. This shows that the Egyptian pharaohs must have been more powerful because they did not have to write their laws down to convince people to follow them. Also, Egyptian pharaohs monopolized trade and controlled their merchants while the merchants in Mesopotamia were free and independent of government interference. Therefore, the government of Egypt was more centralized under the power of one ruler than the government of Mesopotamia, which was divided among several city-states.
To an extent, both societies had similar religious beliefs. Mesopotamians believed in many deities and believed in anthropomorphic gods. This means that they assigned human-like qualities to their gods. Egyptians also practiced polytheism and saw their gods as having the same traits as humans. Both groups built huge structures, which show that religion was very important in both areas. Egyptians built pyramids while Mesopotamians built ziggurats....