From 4000 BCE to 3000 BCE, many aspects of life changed around the Nile River. The Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians and Persians developed city-states in Mesopotamia around 4000 BCE. The Egyptians created their own settlement in Egypt on the other side of the Nile in 3000 BCE making 3 separate kingdoms. Although Egypt and Mesopotamia were on opposite sides of the Nile, they produced their own civilizations with some similarities and many differences. Each had its own government, religion, and leadership; social classes, economic state, and job specialization; and culture including art and literature.
Both the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians had some differences and similarities between their governments and religious ways. The Egyptians had a government based on bureaucracy or an organized central government where the pharaoh (spiritual leader) ruled all 3 kingdoms with divine kingship. In Egypt, there were no war or laws because Egyptians were very peaceful until they drove out the Hyksos in their New Kingdom. In the Old Kingdom the pharaohs were gods. In the Middle Kingdom they were the sons of G-d. They believed in many gods such as the sun god Ra and the Nile in the New Kingdom making them polytheistic. They had religious temples called ziggurats and pyramids where pharaohs were buried with all their life belongings for a beneficial afterlife. In contrast, the Mesopotamian city-states were led by kings and were much less stable than Egypt. There were warrior kings fighting with one another and there were many competitions among city-states and constant invasions. Mesopotamians had the code of Hammurabi, the first set of written laws, to abide by. They had theocratic government or a government based on religion instead of a bureaucracy. They had individual governments within each city-state. The Mesopotamians also had temples and ziggurats but the priests were their gods.