Egypt


A Brief History of Ancient Egypt (700,000 BP - 665 AD)

Map of ancient and modern cities of Egypt.

The Pre-Historic and Predynastic Period (700,000 BP - 3150 BC)

​The history of ancient Egypt begins about 700,000 years ago when rock tools, called lithic artifacts, are found in the Western Desert of Egypt; These artifacts are made of chert and silicified sandstone and they are very rudimentary interpreted as handaxes attributed to homo erectus by the archaeologists. In the vast desert of Sahara in the northeast Africa a river cut the arid and hostile land and this river begins in the highlands of Ethiopia and the lakes of sub-saharan Africa. This river was called Nile later by the Greeks. The Greek historian Herodotus was a big contributor to the knowledge of the history of this ancient civilization that he called the "gift of the Nile". During more than 70,000 years several climatic changes occurred in that African region that resulted in the drying of the Playas (lakes and oases) of the Western Desert forcing the groups of homo sapiens to migrate to the margins of the river Nile. There they established human settlements and they were hunters and gatherers, extracting from the fertile soil recharged by the river floods the seeds and vegetables, hunting wild animals and fishing.

​About the year 5000 BC the agriculture begins to develop in the margins of the Nile, animals are domesticated and harvesting techniques are improved like the use of the sickle blades made of chert. The human settlements begin to develop slightly different cultures. The fire was dominated a long time ago and pottery becomes common at this epoch. Around 4300 BC two distinct cultures appeared. Because the Nile runs from the high lands in the south to the low lands in the north, the southern region was called Upper Egypt and the northern region was called Lower Egypt. In the Upper Egypt there was the Naqada culture that buried her deeds in individual sepultures in the desert sand putting the personal objects together (normally pottery) and positioning the deceased facing to the west demonstrating complex religious rituals. In the Lower Egypt it was developed the Buto Ma'adi culture with simple pottery styles and they buried their dead in individual graves in the sand in which the body were put facing east.

​The archaeological records of the Buto Ma'adi culture disappear around 4200 BC when the Naqada culture dominates and begins the precursor of the ancient Egyptian civilization. The period that embraces the time range of 4300 BC to 3200 BC is called Predynastic Egypt, and in this epoch begins the record of kingship independently in the Upper and Lower Egypt. These kings had names known because of early development of hieroglyphic script with phonetic and alphabetic properties. The inscriptions show the names of kings like Scorpion, Ka, and Iri-Hor. Monuments of these Predynastic kings doesn’t exist anymore, but their tombs excavated in the sand and covered with piles of gravel and sand were discovered and mapped in detail by the british Egyptologist Sir Flinders Petrie in the end of the 19th century in the necropolis of Abydos, specially in the cemetery of Umm el Qaab. The tombs are complex presenting several compartiments resembling house acommodations for the deceased king with his personal objects placed in specific sections of the tomb.

Pre-Historic Handaxe (c. 250,000 BP) found in Eastern Desert of Thebes.



Ceramic vase of Naqada culture (4000 BC).


The Early Dynastic Period (3050 BC - 2686 BC)


​There is archaeological evidence from c.3150 BC that demonstrates, through many excavations made in the city of Nekhen (Hierakonpolis), that the first pharaoh of the 1st Dynasty unified the separated kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt ruling all the country for the first time as single sovereign. The famous discovery at Nekhen of the Narmer Pallete, considered the first historical document, portraits the first pharaoh Narmer dominating the peoples of the Lower Egypt. Narmer was the king of the Upper Egypt that defeated the king of the Lower Egypt, according to the current interpretations of the Palette by the modern Egyptologists and was then crowned with both crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt beginning the 1st Dynasty. When the first dynasty was established the social system was already highly bureaucratic and stratified. The country was organized in nomes, where each one was administered by a nomarc or "governor" designated by the king. The next kings were Hor-Aha, Djer, Djet, Den, Qaa, Anedjib, etc. The king Hor-Aha was the founder of the Egyptian political and religious capital, Memphis. The last pharaoh of the 2nd Dynasty was Khasekhemwy, known by his limestone statue with his name inscribed in a serekh. From this time on the pharaohs were buried in mastabas, structures made of mud brick erected like a plateau where the pharaoh were buried in a chamber below the mastaba structure.


 The Narmer Palette, discovered in excavations at the"main deposit" in the Egyptian city of Hierakonpolis (Nekhen) dating from c.3150 BC.

The Old Kingdom (2686 BC - 2566 BC)
​From the beginning of the 3rd Dynasty until 6th Dynasty the period is called Old Kingdom, the era of the pyramids construction. Egyptologists divide the history of ancient Egypt into periods as follows: Old Kingdom (3rd Dynasty to 6th Dynasty); First Intermediate Period (7th Dynasty to 11th Dynasty); Middle Kingdom (Second half of the 11th Dynasty to 12th Dynasty); Second Intermediate Period (13th Dynasty to 17th Dynasty); New Kingdom (18th Dynasty to 20th Dynasty); Third Intermediate Period (21st Dynasty to 25th Dynasty); Late Period (26th Dynasty to 33th Dynasty); Ptolemaic Period (34th Dynasty to 36th Dynasty until the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC); Roman and Bizantine Period (Beginning in 31 BC and ending with Islamic Conquest in the year 665 AD).
​The intermediate periods of ancient Egypt are time intervals in which great political tribulations and social upheavals brings instability to Egypt. In these periods also occurred invasion by foreign peoples, and fights for power and dominance between the two lands of Egypt. The intermediate periods are called the "dark ages" of ancient Egyptian civilization and those had religious implications because the pharaoh represented the god Horus on earth that had to provide order, justice and sustenance to the people. The ancient Egyptians had a concept of divine order (personified by the goddess Maat) against the chaos (represented by the netherworld serpent Apep or Apophis and sometimes by the god Seth or Setesh).
The Old Kingdom initiated in the 3rd Dynasty when the most prominent record is of the king Djoser that built the first pyramid, the Step Pyramid in the necropolis of Saqqara by his architect and vizier Imhotep that was also physician, scribe, and high priest of Annu (Heliopolis). The pharaoh Sneferu (4th Dynasty) made his constructions in the necropolis of Dahshur, and his pyramids where: The Bent Pyramid of Dahshur, the Red Pyramid of Dahshur and the Pyramid of Meidum. The son of Sneferu was the next pharaoh Khufu (Cheops), the famous king that built the Great Pyramid of Giza Plateau. Then came pharaoh Khafra (Chefren) and Menkaura (Micerinos) that built their pyramids in the Giza Plateau and Khafra sculpted his Great Sphinx from a limestone bedrock. The pharaoh Unas (5th Dynasty) was the first builder of a pyramid (in the necropolis of Saqqara) with inner hieroglyphic inscriptions. There are magical and religious funerary inscriptions in the pyramid of Unas in their inner walls, corridors and in the sarcophagus chamber. These texts are the ancient religious texts in the Middle East, the collection of this texts also found in the pyramids of Teti, Pepi I (6th Dynasty) and so on were called the Pyramid Texts that later was compiled in the 19th Dynasty and called The Book of the Dead or The Book of the Coming Forth By Day.


The Step Pyramid of pharaoh Djoser (3rd Dynasty) in the Necropolis of Saqqara. The first monument built entirely with limestone blocks in the Ancient World.

The Bent Pyramid of pharaoh Sneferu (4th Dynasty) in Dahshur.

The Great Pyramid of pharaoh Khufu (4th Dynasty) in the Giza Plateau.


The First Intermediate Period (2181 BC - 2055 BC)


​This period marks the epoch of social and political instability. The last paharoh of the 6th Dynasty was Pepi II that reigned for 92 years (according to Egyptian historian Manetho and the King Lists) and this long time of reign perhaps started a time of political weakness and consequent chaos because of an old king. This period was remembered later as an epoch of deep lamentation. The Egypt were divided in diverse dynasties ruling independently in the north and the south. The princes of Thebes went to battle with the kings of the Nile Delta and this conflict was "partially" won by Intef Wahankh that do not became the pharaoh. The second half of the 11th Dynasty was marked by the victory of pharaoh Mentuhotep II that reunited Egypt and started the Middle Kingdom.


The Middle Kingdom (2055 BC - 1782 BC)

​The Middle Kingdom begins with the princes of Thebes, the Intefs, and then continue with the pharaohs all named Mentuhotep and Amenemhat, that ruled over the two lands of Egypt again creating a military supremacy making campaigns in Libia, Nubia, Syria and the Sinai. During the Middle Kingdom the Pyramid Texts was written in the wood coffins of the pharaohs and nobles. The scripts in the coffins were linear hieroglyphic, a more formal format of the hieratic writing, a cursive hieroglyphic writing system. The texts were called Coffin Texts. The worship of god Osiris intensified and the capital of the god Ra, Heliopolis, also became in evidence once more, but gave the space to the god of netherworld Osiris. The pharaohs of the 12th Dynasty also were buried in small pyramids built in Saqqara, Lisht, and Meidum. In the end of the 12th Dynasty outsiders invaded Egypt and a new epoch of instability began.


Middle Kingdom wooden sarcophagus inscribed with funerary texts and spells that were called the Coffin Texts

Pyramidion of pharaoh Amenemhat III (12th Dynasty). The pyramidion or benben stone were a little stone pyramid that stood in the top of the pharaoh's pyramid, representing ressurrection based on the worship of god Osiris and also the light rays of sun god Ra.

The Second Intermediate Period (1782 BC - 1650 BC)

This epoch is marked by the invasion of foreign peoples through the north of Egypt and these outsiders established a dynasty in the Nile Delta. These peoples were called Hicsos that could be translated as "foreign kings". The fact is that battles did not occurred in 150 years of Hicsos domination. The identity of the Hicsos is mysterious until today and many scholars supports that they were peoples from Canaan. The Hicsos kings absorbed the Egyptian culture and became illegitimate pharaohs worshiping god like Seth and Apophis. A handful of Hicsos kings ruled Egypt for 150 years without civil wars, but the Theban princes became a revolution against the Hicsos to restablish their legitimacy. The king of Thebes that became known to participate in one of the last conflicts against the Hicsos were Seqenenra Tao that was killed in battle. The Hicsos had formidable weapons made of bronze and horses with wooden cars, something that Egyptians did not have at that time. The unification of the Two Lands of Egypt and the expulsion of the Hicsos were made by the pharaoh Ahmose, who started the 18th Dynasty.

Inscribed scarab of Hicsos king Apophis.

The New Kingdom (1570 BC - 1080 BC)


​Beginning in the 18th Dynasty it follows a succession of kings that were remarkable by their monuments (temples, obelisks, colossal statues, public buildings, etc.). The pharaohs Tuthmosis I, Tuthmosis II, and Tuthmosis III were remembered by their great conquests in wars, in their military campaigns in Nubia until the 4th Cataract of Upper Egypt, conquering the peoples of Sudan, Canaan and even the borders of Mesopotamia. Peace treaties were also made between pharaohs and foreigners through marriages. The queen Hatshepsut became famous for being the first female pharaoh before the reign of Tuthmosis III. Hatshepsut built her great mortuary temple in the Deir el Bahri near the Temple of Mentuhotep II. She made commercial campaigns to the mysterious of Punt in search for gold and other goods. During the reign of Tuthmosis III the tombs of the kings were carved inside the rocks of the Valley of Kings near the city Thebes. Tuthmosis III started a tradition of buring the king and queens in this Valley to hide them from tomb robers. The pharaohs Amenhotep II, and Amenhotep III also were great kings with their military conquests and fabulous monuments. The classical example is the remains of the Temple of Amenhotep III, his two colossal statues in the front of the temple that the Greeks called Colossus of Memnom.

Granite bust of queen and pharaoh Hatshepsut.

Ushabti of pharaoh Amenhotep II (18th Dynasty). The ushabtis were votive or funerary statuettes with magical powers for helping the deceased in the afterlife.

Giant statues that stood in the front of the mortuary temple of pharaoh Amenhotep III (18th Dynasty). This statues were later called by the Greeks the Colossus of Memnom.

Amenhotep IV made a religious revolution becoming perhaps the first monotheist of History. He glorified and promoted the god Aten, the solar disc, and banished the worship of the other Egyptian gods. He moved from Memphis to his new capital that his followers built, Akhetaten, modern Tel el Amarna. Amenhotep IV change his name to Akhenaten and with all these dramatic changes he destabilized the political, religious and military system with his ideals. His queen was Nefertiti known by his famous limestone sculpture elegantly adorned. The Amarna Period were unpleasant for the Egyptians because of their heretic pharaoh. However, a great archaeological discovery in the region of Tel el Amarna in the beginning of the 20th century of at least 300 cuneiform tablets representing letters of Ancient Near East kings to the pharaoh. These cuneiform tablets were called Amarna Letters. These cuneiform documents show that reltionships between Egypt and other nations were present even in the time of Akhenaten.   When Akhenaten died, his nine year old son, Tutankhaten, raised to the throne and his reign was short. He reestablished the capital of Memphis, reopened the temples of the Egyptian gods, and changed his name to Tutankhamun (The living image of Amun) showing his intention to completely restore the Egyptian religion by glorifying the patron god Amun. Tutankhamun married his half-sister Ankhesenamen. Their children did not survive long enough. The Tutankhamun lineage was not preserved, and he died in battle with 19 years old. His tomb was found practically intact in 1922 by archaeologist Howard Carter. His gold sarcophagus and his golden funerary mask are the major attraction in the Cairo Museum. When Tutankhamun died, his advisor and vizier Aye became pharaoh marrying with the widow Ankhesenamen. His reign was brief and, in his place, the general of Tutankhamun, Horemheb, became pharaoh. Horemheb were a king of restoration of the good and old costumes of the Egyptian kingship. He reinforced the military and made some campaigns. He erased the names of Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, and Aye from the king list records considering them illegitimate. Horemheb did not have children and, then, he was the last pharaoh of 18th Dynasty.
Statue of pharaoh Akhenaten.

The golden mortuary mask of pharaoh Tutankhamun.

The 19th Dynasty starts with pharaoh Ramesses I, that were Horemheb's general of the battle fronts. He was a common and his son, Seti I, became a great king. Seti I built the great temple of Amun-Ra in Abydos near the ancient temple Osirion, discovered below the water table. Seti I was a pharaoh of war and of great constructions. In the wall of the Temple of Abydos Seti I is portrayed together with his son Ramesses II, the next pharaoh, where is present the List of Kings considered legitimate from Narmer (Menes) to Seti I (Men-Maat-Ra). His Temple of Luxor has the incredible pillars of the Hypostile Hall that was finished by his son and successor of the throne. Ramesses II was the greatest pharaoh of Egypt. He ruled for 67 years and had hundreds of children. His famous Battle of Kadesh was registered in all his temples. He continued the building of the Temple of Amun-Ra of his father, Seti I. He became known as Ramesses the Great. The Battle of Kadesh against the Hittites was ended with a peace treaty that was written in a silver tablet and given to the pharaoh and in a clay tablet with cuneiform script. The document of the peace treaty inscribed in the cuneiform tablet is preserved today. Ramesses built his mortuary temple, the Ramesseum, in Aswan, Upper Egypt, and his famous temple of Abu Simbel, in Aswan, carved from the rock, also the temple of Hathor dedicated to his queen Nefertari. The tomb of the family of Ramesses II is in the Valley of the Kings and it is the bigger complex of chambers and corridors in all the ancient world. Workers of the tomb dwelled in the village of Deir el Medineh in Thebes, near the Valley. The village of Deir el Medineh is the only archaeological remain of a settlement of normal people with a good state of conservation in Egypt.
Magnificent wall painting of the tomb of the pharaoh Seti I (19th Dynasty) in the Valley of Kings.


Temple of Ramesses II in Abu Simbel, near Aswan, Upper Egypt.

The 13th son of Ramesses II was Merenptah, the next pharaoh. He engaged in some battles with the peoples of the Levant and his Victory Stella mentions for the first time the tribes of Israel. The record shows that Merenptah defeated the people of Israel. The next kings had decadent glory (Seti II, Ramesses III to Ramesses XI). Ramesses IV had a reasonable reign, he sent expeditions to the quarry of Wadi Hammamat in search for ornamental stones. His father Ramesses III expelled the Sea Peoples from Egypt, probably a group of various peoples from the region of ancient Anatolia. Ramesses XI was the last pharaoh of the 20th Dynasty ending the New Kingdom.
Statue of pharaoh Merenptah (19th Dynasty) in the left and his Stela of Victory in the right with a record about his victory over Cannanite peoples including the tribes of Israel.

The Third Intermediate Period (1080 BC - 525 BC)

​From the 21st Dynasty to the 25th Dynasty the Egyptologists call this epoch of Third Intermediate Period that united several time intervals of divided Egyptian dynasties and the domination of foreign kings. The 21st Dynasty is marked by the division of the Two Lands of Egypt, where the kings of Thebes ruled in the Upper Egypt and the kings of Tanis ruled from the Delta in the Lower Egypt and they lived peacefully in this political division. The Bubastite Period comprise the dominance of the dynasty of Bubastis in Lower Egypt. The Kushite Period comprised the 24th to the 25th Dynasty when the Nubian king Piankhy invaded Egypt and conquered the kings of Upper and Lower Egypt becaming the first Nubian pharaoh. The Nubians adopted the Egyptian culture and costumes making mud brick tombs with pyramid shape in the nubian desert. The Nubian pharaohs ruled from the nubian city of Napata. They utilized ushabtis and worshipped the god Amun in the form of a ram-headed man. The Shabaqa Stone, one of the Nubian pharaohs, contain the legend of creation of the Universe by the memphite god Ptah. The Assyrian king Esarhaddon defeat the Nubian pharaoh Taharqa, starting the 26th Dynasty.

 
The Nubian pyramids of the pharaohs of the Kushite Dynasty and the in the right the Victory Stela of Neo-Assyrian king Esarhaddon over the Nubian pharaoh Taharqa.

The Late Period (525 BC - 323 BC)

​The Late Period comprises the invasion of Egypt by the Assyrians that expelled the Nubians starting the Saite Dynasty to the Persian Achaemenid conquest of Egypt (26th to 31st Dynasty). The designated Egyptian kings by the Assyrians were only administrators of the conquered Egypt. The invasion of Egypt by the Persian king Cambyses II is registered by the Greek historian Herodotus and the Persian Achaemenid Empire annexed Egypt. Cambyses II killed the pharaoh Psamtik III taking over the control of the country. Darius III was the last Persian ruler over Egypt when Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire also became pharaoh. After the death of Alexander the Great, the kingdoms of Greece were divided between his former generals. Ptolemy I Soter became ruler of Egypt and Seleucus I Nicator became ruler of Mesopotamia.

Cylinder seal impression depicting the Persian king Cambyses II defeating pharaoh Psamtik III.

The Ptolemaic Period (323 BC - 31 BC)

​Ptolemy I Soter was a general of Alexander the Great and governor of Egypt, when Alexander died Ptolemy became pharaoh starting the Ptolemaic Dynasty. This period is marked by the Greek Hellenistic culture that fused together with the Egyptian culture. Syncretic gods emerged like Zeus-Ptah, Serapis and Dionisus. The Egyptians payed heavy taxes to the Ptolomies. The capital of Egypt was established in the Delta by Alexander. The city of Alexandria, the new Egyptian capital, became the center of administration of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. Ptolemy I built the famous Library of Alexandria and the Pharos Lighthouse. Ptolemy II Philadelphus was another important king. He hired 70 rabis to translate the Judaic Old Testament from Hebrew to Greek and this became the Greek Septuagint. Alexandria was the cradle of great minds like the mathematician Euclides that published his famous nook Elements of Geometry, Erathostenes that calculated the circumference of Earth, the mathematician Archimedes, and the astronomer Claudius Ptolomeus that published his work, with the catalogue of stars and constellations and his Geocentric Model of the Solar System, later translated by Arabs with the title Almagesto. During the time of Ptolomies the Temple of Isis in the island of Philae was built.

Temple of Isis in the Egyptian island of Philae, built during the Ptolemaic Period.

18th Century AD illustration of the Alexandria Pharos Lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the Ancient World, today completely ruined.

In this period the Egyptian priest and historian Manetho compiled his book Aegyptiaka (History of Egypt) written in Greek. The first King List consulted by scholars was the dynastic sequence established by Manetho, where the names of the pharaohs appear in Greek versions. The Canopus Decree was made for Ptolomy V in Egyptian hieroglyphic and hieratic scripts and Greek scripts, this granodiorite stela became known as the Rosetta Stone, the artifact that helped to decipher for the first time the Egyptian hieroglyphs. The decipherment of the Rosette Stone was published in 1822 by the French philologist Jean François Champollion stating the discipline of Egyptology. The last Ptolemy was the queen Cleopatra VII, daughter of Ptolemy XII Auletes, becoming the only person of the Ptolemaic lineage to speak the ancient Egyptian language. During the time of Cleopatra VII, the Roman Empire was dominant, and Egypt became a Roman province. Cleopatra VII had intimate and political relationships of Julius Caesar and with general Mark Anthony. The son of Cleopatra with Caesar was Cesarion and the children of Cleopatra with Mark Anthony were Alexander Helios, Cleopatra Selene, and the little Ptolemy. Cleopatra were persecuted by the governor Octavian that won the Egyptian forces in the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. Mark Anthony committed suicide and Cleopatra did the same later.

 
In the left is the bust of queen Cleopatra VII, the last Ptolemy; on the right the Rosetta Stone, discovered during the 18th Century Napoleonic expedition in Egypt, this stone was a stela with the Canopus Decree written by the priests to the pharaoh Ptolemy V. The Rosetta Stone was the key to decipher the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs which were made by Jean François Champollion in 1822.

The Roman and Bizantine Period (31 BC - 665 AD)

​In the year of 31 BC Egypt was annexed by Octavian as a Roman District. From 31 BC to 416 AD Egypt was ruled by Roman praefectos and governatores. With the fall of Rome and the beginning of the Bizantine Empire, Egypt was annexed to the Empire of Constantinople and from 416 AD the Egyptian culture and language were completely forgotten. Christianity became the official religion and about 200 AD the Copt Christian Ortodox Church became dominant in Egypt. Thanks to the Copt language, a late version of Egyptian language written with greek-like alphabet that had been preserved in religious texts, Champollion had the key, the missing link, that helped him to decipher the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs from the Rosette Stone. About the year 665 AD, in the decline of Bizantine Empire, the Muslims became to take control of Egypt in the Islamic Conquest. From this point in time the Egypt were controlled by the caliphate, the Islam became the official religion and the Arabic replaced the Copt as official language.
References:
​Ian Shaw (Ed.). The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. 2002.

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