EGYPT

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HISTORY


Egypt is one of the most fertile areas of Africa, and one of the most fertile of the countries around the Mediterranean Sea. Because it is so fertile, people came to live in Egypt earlier than in most places, probably around 40,000 years ago. At first there were not very many people, but gradually Egypt became more crowded, so there was more need for a unified government. Around 3000 BC (5000 years ago), Egypt was first unified under one ruler, who was called the Pharaoh.
From that time until around 525 BC, when Egypt was conquered by the Persians, Egypt's history is divided into six different time periods. These are called the Old Kingdom, the First Intermediate Period, the Middle Kingdom, the Second Intermediate Period, the New Kingdom, and the Third Intermediate Period.


Old Kingdom Egypt



When Egypt was first unified around 3000 BC under a Pharaoh from Upper Egypt (the south), the Pharaohs quickly came to have a great deal of power over their subjects. Their capital was at Memphis. Because it was so long ago, we don't have a lot of information about this time. It seems that the Pharaohs organized the first systematic irrigation from the Nile river, which allowed still more people to live in Egypt without starving. The Pyramids were built in this period as great tombs for the Pharaohs. Probably they were built by people who were usually farmers, like most people at that time. They may have been built a little at a time each year, during the Nile floods when people couldn't do farm work anyway. Recent archaeology suggests that the earliest Pharaohs also engaged in human sacrifice.


Egypt in the First Intermediate Period


The end of the Old Kingdom, around 2600 BC, seems to have been caused by rebellions among the lower levels of the rich people, who believed that the Pharaohs had too much power. Gradually the Pharaohs had become more and more dependent on the government officials, and these men grabbed power. Some of the organization of the country collapsed. No more pyramids were built. Literary sources describe a time of anarchy, with noblemen and noblewomen working in the fields, men killing their parents, brothers fighting, and tombs being destroyed. Some people, like Brian Fagan, think this may have been brought on by a major climate change which brought drought conditions to Egypt.



Middle Kingdom Egypt

The Middle Kingdom was formed after a series of wars between the rulers of Upper Egypt (the South) and Lower Egypt (the North). The rulers of Upper Egypt won, and they reunified the country about 2000 BC, with the capital first at Thebes in the south, and then at a new city just south of Memphis. The Pharaohs of this period are not as powerful as before. They show themselves as taking care of their people, instead of as god-kings as in the Old Kingdom. They are the shepherds of the people now. The nomarchs (local officials) are powerful. In this period, Jerusalem, Jericho and Syria first came under Egyptian influence. There was a lot of trading with Byblos, near modern Beirut.



Second Intermediate Period Egypt


Around 1786 BC the Hyksos invaded Egypt, starting the Second Intermediate Period. The Hyksos, who were invaders from Western Asia, took over the eastern part of the Nile Delta (North-Eastern Egypt, the part closest to Asia), having their capital at Memphis. We still aren't sure who the Hyksos were, but they seem to have been Amorites, who spoke a Semitic language (related to Hebrew and Arabic) and came from the area around Syria and Israil, an area which had traded extensively with the Egyptians during the Middle Kingdom. The Hyksos did very well for about a hundred years, but then (as in the First Intermediate Period) the southern rulers from Thebes again began to reconquer the north of Egypt. In these "wars of liberation," the brothers Kamose and Ahmose fought both the Hyksos and the Nubians, Africans who lived to the south, and succeeded in reuniting Egypt.



New Kingdom Egypt



With the reunification of Egypt by the southerner Ahmose (Kamose died before it was united) and the expulsion of the Hyksos, Egypt began a new period of prosperity under the 18th dynasty. At this time there was a great deal of trade with Western Asia, and Egyptian armies even conquered much of Israil and Syria, though they were constantly fighting the Hittites and Assyrian to keep control of it. Great temples were built all over Egypt. The Egyptian queens were very powerful at this time, and in 1490 BC one of them, Hatshepsut, became Pharaoh herself.
Akhenaten
In 1363 BC there was a famous Pharaoh named Akhenaten, who built a new capital at Amarna and seems to have worshipped a new sun god, and developed new art styles.
Nefertiti
His wife was Nefertiti. He had no sons, and his successor was his son-in-law Tutankhamon. However, by 1333 BC the Pharaohs went back to the old religion.
Tutankhamon
In 1303 BC a new northern dynasty or family of Pharaohs took over, the 19th Egyptian dynasty. Their first king, Rameses, moved the capital back to Memphis in the north. Priests became very powerful. Fighting with the Hittites in Western Asia continued, but also a lot of trade.
The 20th dynasty Pharaohs, around 1200 BC, continued the same policies, and were all called Rameses. There were many attacks on Egypt, first from Libya to the west and then from West Asia, by a group that the Egyptians called the Sea Peoples. The Hittites were destroyed, though around 1100 BC the Egyptians fought off the Sea Peoples in a great naval battle. But the trouble in West Asia seems to have caused a general economic depression in the whole Eastern Mediterranean and West Asia, and soon afterwards the


Egypt in the Third Intermediate Period


After the death of the last Ramses in 1085 BC, Egypt fell apart. We don't know exactly why, but there may have been a serious drought.
Philistines on the Egyptian temple at Medinet Habu
The Hittite and Mycenaean cultures collapsed at the same time, and various people from that area invaded Egypt, where they were called the Sea Paoples - the Philistines, the Lycians, and the Achaeans, among others (possibly the Trojans). Egypt beat these Sea Peoples off, but Egypt collapsed soon afterward anyway.
Ramses III defeating the Sea Peoples
Egypt lost its control over Israel and Lebanon (this is the story of Moses) and was again ruled by different kings in the north and the south. Nubia got back its independence altogether, and had its own kings, and so did the Egyptian territories in Israel and Syria (this is the time of King David and King Solomon in the Bible). The north became richer than the south, and cities developed for the first time. But Egypt was weaker than usual, and the Libyans invaded several times, and ruled the north for a while. In the south, at Thebes, the priests of Amun continued to be very powerful.
Around 715 BC, a black Sudanese (or Kushite) king from south of Egypt, named Piankhy, invaded and conquered most of Egypt and founded Dynasty 25 of the Pharaohs. (This might be a sculpture of Piankhy's successor, Shabaka)
This dynasty did not last long, because a new group in West Asia, the Assyrians, conquered Egypt in a series of wars ending in 664 BC and drove the Sudanese out of Egypt. The Assyrians could not really rule a land so far from their own capital at Nineveh, though, and soon another group of Libyan kings took over as Dynasty 26, with help from Greek and Lydian soldiers. These kings are called the Saites (sah-EETS), after their capital at Sais in the north of Egypt.

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