History of ancient Egypt

• 1. Desiccation And Settlement

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  The Nile has been the lifeline for Egyptian culture since nomadic hunter-gatherers began living along it during the Pleistocene. Traces of these early people appear in the form of artefacts and rock carvings along the terraces of the Nile and in the oases. Along the Nile in the 12th millennium BC, an Upper Paleolithic grain-grinding culture using the earliest type of sickle blades had replaced the culture of hunting, fishing, and hunter-gatherers using stone tools. Despite evidence indicating human habitation and cattle herding in the southwestern corner of Egypt near the Sudan border before the 8th millennium BC, the idea of an independent bovine domestication event in Africa must be abandoned because subsequent evidence gathered over a period of thirty years has failed to corroborate this.

  Geological evidence and computer climate modeling studies suggest that natural climate changes around the 8th millennium BC began to desiccate the extensive pastoral lands of North Africa, eventually forming the Sahara by the 25th century BC. Continued desiccation forced the early ancestors of the Egyptians to settle around the Nile more permanently and forced them to adopt a more sedentary lifestyle. The oldest-known domesticated cattle remains in Africa are from the Faiyum c. 4400 BC. By the 6th millennium, Nile society was engaged in organized agriculture and the construction of large buildings.

• 2. Unification And Pyramids

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  The historical records of ancient Egypt begin with Egypt as a unified state, which occurred sometime around 3150 BC. According to Egyptian tradition, Menes, thought to have united Upper and Lower Egypt, was the first king. Archaeological findings support the view that the first ruler to claim to have united the two lands was Narmer, the final king of the Naqada III period. His name is known primarily from the famous Narmer Palette, whose scenes have been interpreted as the act of uniting Upper and Lower Egypt.

  The Old Kingdom is perhaps best known for the large number of pyramids, which were constructed at this time as pharaonic burial places. For this reason, this epoch is frequently referred to as "the Age of the Pyramids". The first notable pharaoh of the Old Kingdom was Djoser of the Third Dynasty, who ordered the construction of the first pyramid, the Pyramid of Djoser, in Memphis' necropolis of Saqqara. Sneferu, the dynasty's founder, is believed to have commissioned at least three pyramids; while his son and successor Khufu erected the Great Pyramid of Giza, Sneferu had more stone and brick moved than any other pharaoh.

• 3. Fragmentation And Foreign Rule

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  After the fall of the Old Kingdom came a roughly 200-year stretch of time known as the First Intermediate Period, which is generally thought to include a relatively obscure set of pharaohs running from the end of the Sixth to the Tenth and most of the Eleventh Dynasties. Most of these were likely local monarchs who did not hold much power outside of their nome. There are a number of texts known as "Lamentations" from the early period of the subsequent Middle Kingdom that may shed some light on what happened during this period.

  The Second Intermediate Period marks a period when Egypt once again fell into disarray between the end of the Middle Kingdom and the start of the New Kingdom. This period is best known as the time the Hyksos made their appearance in Egypt, the reigns of its kings comprising the Fifteenth Dynasty. The Thirteenth Dynasty proved unable to hold onto the long land of Egypt, and a provincial family of Levantine descent located in the marshes of the eastern Delta at Avaris broke away from the central authority to form the Fourteenth Dynasty. While the Fourteenth Dynasty was Levantine, the Hyksos first appeared in Egypt c. 1650 BC when they took control of Avaris and rapidly moved south to Memphis.

• 4. Imperial Ambitions And Heresy

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  Possibly as a result of the foreign rule of the Hyksos during the Second Intermediate Period, the New Kingdom saw Egypt attempt to create a buffer between the Levant and Egypt, and attain its greatest territorial extent. It expanded far south into Nubia and held wide territories in the Near East. Egyptian armies fought Hittite armies for control of modern-day Syria. One of the best-known 18th Dynasty pharaohs is Amenhotep IV, who changed his name to Akhenaten in honor of the god Aten.

  His exclusive worship of the Aten, sometimes called Atenism, is often seen as history's first instance of monotheism. Atenism and several changes that accompanied it seriously disrupted Egyptian society. Akhenaten built a new capital at the site of Amarna, which gives his reign and the few that followed their modern name, the Amarna Period. Under a series of successors, of whom the longest reigning were Tutankhamun and Horemheb, worship of the old gods was revived and much of the art and monuments that were created during Akhenaten's reign was defaced or destroyed.

• 5. Assyrian Wars And Persian Conquest

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  From 671 BC on, Memphis and the Delta region became the target of many attacks from the Assyrians, who expelled the Nubians and handed over power to client kings of the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty. Psamtik I was the first recognized as the king of the whole of Egypt, and he brought increased stability to the country during a 54-year reign from the new capital of Sais. However, during this period Babylonian emperor Nebuchadnezzar II campaigned against the Egyptians and drove them back over the Sinai.

  By the end of this period a new power was growing in the Near East: Persia. The Pharaoh Psamtik III had to face the might of Persia at Pelusium; he was defeated and briefly escaped to Memphis, but ultimately was captured and then executed. Achaemenid Egypt can be divided into two eras: the first period of Persian occupation, 525, 404 BC (when Egypt became a satrapy), followed by an interval of independence, and the second and final period of occupation, 343, 332 BC. Artaxerxes III reconquered Egypt for a brief period.

• 6. Greek Kings And Roman Annexation

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  In 332 BC, Alexander III of Macedon conquered Egypt with little resistance from the Persians. He visited Memphis, and went on a pilgrimage to the oracle of Amun at the Siwa Oasis. The oracle declared him the son of Amun. He conciliated the Egyptians by the respect he showed for their religion, but he appointed Greeks to virtually all the senior posts in the country, and founded a new Greek city, Alexandria, to be the new capital.

  Following Alexander's death in Babylon in 323 BC, a succession crisis erupted among his generals. Perdiccas appointed Ptolemy, one of Alexander's closest companions, to rule Egypt in the name of the joint kings. However, as Alexander's empire disintegrated, Ptolemy soon established himself as ruler in his own right. In 305 BC, Ptolemy took the title of Pharaoh. As Ptolemy I Soter, he founded the Ptolemaic dynasty that was to rule Egypt for nearly 300 years. The most famous member of the line was the last queen, Cleopatra VII, known for her role in the Roman political battles between Julius Caesar and Pompey.