Egypt of the Pharaohs

Seen from above, Egypt is a thin green ribbon along the Nile, with desert on both sides.

Every summer the river flooded, leaving fresh black silt on the fields. The Greek writer Herodotus called Egypt “the gift of the Nile”.

The desert protected the valley, and the river was a highway. It was the perfect place for a state to last.

Before 3100 BC, Egypt had two halves: Upper Egypt, the narrow valley in the south, and Lower Egypt, the wide Nile delta in the north.

Around 3100 BC, a southern king, traditionally named Narmer or Menes, united them.

From then on, a pharaoh wore a double crown, ruling “the Two Lands” from Memphis, near modern Cairo.

In the Old Kingdom, the pharaoh was seen as a living god. His tomb was a gateway to eternal life.

Around 2650 BC, the architect Imhotep built a step pyramid for King Djoser at Saqqara, the first great building in stone.

Around 2560 BC, the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza rose about 146 metres, built from an estimated 2.3 million stone blocks.

It remained the tallest structure on Earth for more than 3,800 years. Building it took a state that could feed and organise tens of thousands of workers.

Around 2181 BC, central power broke down. Low floods and famine are often blamed. Local governors ruled their own provinces.

Around 2040 BC, Mentuhotep II of Thebes reunited the country, beginning the Middle Kingdom.

Its kings pushed south into Nubia, and built a chain of mud-brick fortresses at the Nile’s second cataract to control gold and trade.

Around 1650 BC, rulers of Levantine origin, known as the Hyksos, took control of the delta from their capital at Avaris.

Egyptian kings held on at Thebes in the south. They learned new technology from their rivals: horse-drawn chariots and composite bows.

Around 1550 BC, Ahmose of Thebes drove the Hyksos out. Egypt would never again feel safe behind its deserts.

The New Kingdom became an empire. Queen Hatshepsut ruled as pharaoh and sent an expedition to the land of Punt.

Her successor, Thutmose III, led some seventeen campaigns. At Megiddo, around 1457 BC, he defeated a coalition of Canaanite kings.

His rule stretched from the Euphrates in Syria to Kurgus, far up the Nile in Nubia.

At its peak the empire covered about a million square kilometres, ruled through vassal kings and Egyptian garrisons.

Akhenaten turned Egypt’s religion upside down. He promoted one god, the sun disc Aten, and built a new capital at Amarna.

Clay letters found there, written in Akkadian, show pharaohs writing to the kings of Babylon, the Hittites and others, calling them “brothers”.

After his death, the young Tutankhamun restored the old gods. His small, nearly intact tomb, found in 1922, made him the most famous pharaoh of all.

Ramesses II reigned for 66 years. In 1274 BC he fought the Hittite king Muwatalli II at Kadesh, in Syria.

Ramesses claimed a great victory on his temple walls. Historians today see the battle as a draw: the Hittites kept Kadesh.

Around 1259 BC, the two empires signed a peace treaty, one of the earliest known.

Ramesses also carved giant statues of himself into the cliffs at Abu Simbel, on Egypt’s Nubian frontier.

Around 1177 BC, Ramesses III fought off the “Sea Peoples”, raiders who were part of a wider collapse that destroyed the Hittite Empire and many cities.

Egypt survived, but grew weaker: low floods, rising grain prices, and the first recorded labour strike, by tomb builders.

By 1069 BC the land was split again, with priests ruling the south from Thebes, and kings ruling the north.

Around 728 BC, King Piye of Kush, in today’s Sudan, conquered Egypt. His dynasty of Kushite pharaohs ruled from the Mediterranean to beyond Napata.

In 671 BC the Assyrians invaded and drove the Kushites south.

In 525 BC Egypt became a province of Persia, and in 332 BC it welcomed Alexander the Great as a liberator.

For centuries, foreign kings ruled Egypt, yet most presented themselves as pharaohs, honouring Egyptian gods.

After Alexander, his general Ptolemy made himself king of Egypt. His family ruled for nearly three centuries from Alexandria.

The city had a great lighthouse and a famous library, and it became a centre of science and learning.

In 196 BC, a decree was carved in three scripts. The Rosetta Stone later helped scholars decipher hieroglyphs.

The last ruler, Cleopatra VII, allied with Rome’s Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. After her death in 30 BC, Egypt became a province of Rome.

From the first pharaoh to Cleopatra, about three thousand years passed. Cleopatra lived closer in time to us than to the building of the Great Pyramid.

Egypt lasted so long because the Nile fed it, the desert shielded it, and its kingship and religion gave every new ruler a ready-made role.

When Jean-François Champollion deciphered hieroglyphs in 1822, Egypt’s own voice could be read again after nearly 1,500 years.

Next: Persia, the empire that conquered Egypt, Babylon and everything between.