Ancient Egypt: Pharaohs, Pyramids, and Legacy
For nearly three thousand years, a single civilization dominated the valley of the Nile. The ancient Egyptians built the world’s first great stone monuments, invented a writing system that puzzled the world for fifteen centuries after it stopped being read, and developed religious ideas about the afterlife that are still being excavated and studied today. Their pharaohs were worshipped as gods. Their pyramids still stand in the desert. Their influence can be traced from Sudan to Lebanon, from Greece to Rome, and into the modern imagination of the entire world.
This pillar walks you through the history of Egypt from the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt around 3100 BCE to the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BCE. It sketches the major periods, the great monuments, the central beliefs, and the most fascinating rulers, and links out to the deep dives on the Pyramids of Giza, the Egyptian Pharaohs, Mummification and the Afterlife, and figures like Cleopatra, Ramesses II, and the Rosetta Stone.
The Geography of Egypt
Egypt is the gift of the Nile. The Greek historian Herodotus said it first, and no one has improved on the formula. The Nile rises in the highlands of East Africa, flows north through what is now Sudan and Egypt, and empties into the Mediterranean through a broad delta. Most of Egypt is a burning, rainless desert. Almost everyone in antiquity lived in the thin strip of fertile land along the river, and the rhythm of Egyptian life was set by the Nile’s annual flood, which deposited a fresh layer of silt and made the harvest possible.
Upper Egypt is the southern valley of the Nile, Lower Egypt is the northern delta. The unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, Narmer (also called Menes), around 3100 BCE is the conventional starting point of Egyptian history.
A Brief Timeline
Egyptian history is conventionally divided into three Kingdoms, separated by Intermediate Periods of political collapse.
The Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BCE) — The Age of the Pyramids
The Old Kingdom is the age of the great pyramid builders. Khufu (Cheops), Khafre, and Menkaure raised the three massive pyramids at Giza, the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing. The step pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara, designed by the architect Imhotep, is the earliest large stone building in the world. The Sphinx of Giza was carved out of a single outcrop of limestone, possibly in the reign of Khafre. You can read more in The Great Pyramid of Giza: Construction Theories and The Pyramids of Giza.
The Old Kingdom collapsed into the First Intermediate Period, a century of famine, civil war, and decentralization.
The Middle Kingdom (c. 2055–1650 BCE) — The Classical Age
Egypt was reunified by Mentuhotep II, and a new line of pharaohs presided over a classical age of literature, art, and imperial expansion into Nubia. The classical Egyptian language and the great works of Middle Kingdom literature were fixed during this period.
The Middle Kingdom ended with the arrival of the Hyksos, a Semitic people who ruled the delta with horse-drawn chariots and bronze weapons.
The New Kingdom (c. 1550–1069 BCE) — The Imperial Age
The New Kingdom was Egypt’s imperial age. Ahmose I expelled the Hyksos, and a line of warrior pharaohs — Ramesses II, Thutmose III, Amenhotep III, Seti I, and others — extended Egyptian power deep into Syria-Palestine and south into Nubia. Thebes became the imperial capital, and the great temples of Karnak and Luxor were built. The controversial monotheist pharaoh Akhenaten tried to replace the Egyptian pantheon with the single god Aten; his son Tutankhamun restored the old religion.
The New Kingdom ended in a slow decline, accelerated by the “Sea Peoples” invasions and the rising power of Assyria.
The Late Period, Persian Rule, and the Ptolemies (664–30 BCE)
Egypt was conquered first by the Assyrians, then by the Persians. In 332 BCE, Alexander the Great took Egypt from the Persians without a fight and was crowned pharaoh. After his death, his general Ptolemy founded the Ptolemaic dynasty, which ruled Egypt for three centuries. The last of the Ptolemies was Cleopatra VII, whose death in 30 BCE — at the hands (or so the Romans said) of an asp — ended pharaonic Egypt and brought the country into the Roman Empire.
Egyptian Religion and the Afterlife
The Egyptians believed that the soul survived death, but only if the body was preserved. This belief is the origin of Mummification and the Afterlife, the most distinctive Egyptian funerary practice. The internal organs were removed, the body was dried in natron salt, wrapped in linen, and placed in a coffin; the heart was kept inside (it was the seat of the soul); the brain was discarded. Wealthy Egyptians were buried with the Book of the Dead, a collection of spells and prayers to guide the soul through the dangers of the underworld.
The Egyptian pantheon was a complicated family of gods and goddesses. You can read about the major deities in Egyptian Mythology. The most important were Ra (the sun god), Osiris (god of the dead and ruler of the underworld), Isis (Osiris’s wife and the divine mother), Horus (the sky god, son of Isis and Osiris), Anubis (the jackal-headed god of embalming), and Thoth (the ibis-headed god of writing and magic).
Egyptian Writing
The Egyptian writing system combined three scripts: hieroglyphs (pictures, used for monumental inscriptions), hieratic (a cursive form, used for everyday documents), and demotic (a later simplified form, used from about 700 BCE to 400 CE). Egyptian writing could be read in any direction, and individual signs could represent words, syllables, or single sounds.
The system remained undeciphered for fifteen centuries after it stopped being used. It was finally cracked in 1822 when the French scholar Jean-François Champollion worked out the principles of the script using the Rosetta Stone, a Ptolemaic stele inscribed with the same text in hieroglyphs, demotic, and Greek.
Egyptian Art and Architecture
Egyptian art was governed by strict conventions that changed very little over three thousand years. Figures were drawn in profile, with the eye and shoulders shown frontally; the pharaoh was always shown larger than his subjects; the gods wore recognizable headdresses. Colors were symbolic: red for power, green for fertility, gold for the flesh of the gods.
The most famous Egyptian buildings are the pyramids and the temples. The pyramids evolved from the mastaba (a flat, rectangular tomb) to the step pyramid of Djoser, to the smooth-sided “true” pyramids of the Old Kingdom. The temples of the New Kingdom — Karnak, Luxor, Abu Simbel — were vast halls of columns, courts, and pylons built for the worship of Amun-Ra.
For the architecture and engineering of the greatest of these monuments, see The Pyramids of Giza, The Great Pyramid of Giza, and The Sphinx of Giza.
Daily Life in Egypt
Most Egyptians were peasant farmers who grew wheat, barley, flax, and vegetables in the rich black soil of the Nile floodplain. They paid taxes in grain, performed corvée labor on the pharaoh’s building projects, and served in the army when called up. Egyptian houses were built of mud brick, often with a central courtyard and a flat roof. Food was bread, beer, onions, fish, dates, and a little meat. Wealthy families lived in larger houses with painted walls, gardens, and a household shrine.
Scribes — the literate class — held a special social position, second only to priests and soldiers. Scribes kept the records, wrote the letters, copied the religious texts, and managed the bureaucracy of the Egyptian state.
The Legacy of Egypt
The Egyptian legacy is enormous. The Greeks learned geometry, surveying, and the solar calendar from the Egyptians. The Romans adopted Egyptian cults (especially that of Isis) and carried them as far as Britain. Coptic Christianity, the religion of the Egyptian church, preserves the last stage of the ancient Egyptian language. The modern world’s interest in archaeology, mummies, and Egyptomania is a direct continuation of the long fascination that Egypt has exerted over Western culture.
Egyptian Art and Architecture in Detail
Egyptian art and architecture are among the most distinctive and most durable in the ancient world. The conventions of Egyptian art changed very little over three thousand years, and the same basic forms and motifs can be traced from the Early Dynastic period to the Ptolemaic period. The art was governed by strict conventions that were designed to express the cosmic order and to ensure the survival of the dead.
Egyptian architecture is most famous for the pyramids, the temples, and the tombs. The pyramids evolved from the mastaba (a flat, rectangular tomb) to the step pyramid of Djoser, to the smooth-sided “true” pyramids of the Old Kingdom, including the three great pyramids of Giza. The temples of the New Kingdom — Karnak, Luxor, Abu Simbel, Medinet Habu — were vast halls of columns, courts, and pylons, decorated with painted reliefs and colossal statues. The tombs of the New Kingdom were built in the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, and they were decorated with scenes from the Book of the Dead and the Amduat (the book of the hidden chamber, which describes the journey of the sun god through the underworld).
Egyptian sculpture was famous for its formal, idealized style. The pharaohs were shown larger than their subjects, the gods were shown with their characteristic headdresses, and the conventions of the human figure were rigidly fixed. The most famous Egyptian sculptures include the great colossi of Memnon, the seated scribe, the bust of Nefertiti (in the Neues Museum in Berlin), the golden mask of Tutankhamun, and the painted wooden statue of the ka of the nobleman.
Egyptian painting was closely related to relief sculpture. The same conventions applied: profile figures, frontal eyes and shoulders, hierarchical scale, and a strong sense of order. The most famous Egyptian paintings are the tomb paintings of the nobles of Thebes, the wall paintings of the temple of the Ramesseum, and the wall paintings of the tomb of Nefertari.
Egyptian jewelry was extraordinarily refined. The craftsmen of the Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom were masters of working in gold, silver, and semi-precious stones, and they produced some of the most beautiful jewelry in the ancient world. The famous treasures of Tutankhamun, discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter, included a gold funerary mask, a gold coffin, a gold throne, jeweled pectorals, and a wide variety of other objects.
Daily Life in Ancient Egypt
The life of an ordinary Egyptian was dominated by the rhythms of the Nile. The Egyptian year was divided into three seasons: the akhet (the inundation, when the Nile flooded and the fields were under water), the peret (the growing season, when the seeds were planted and the crops grew), and the shemu (the harvest, when the crops were reaped and stored). The Egyptian calendar was divided into twelve months of thirty days, with five additional days at the end of the year.
The Egyptian diet was based on bread, beer, onions, garlic, leeks, dates, figs, grapes, and fish. The wealthy ate meat, fowl, and a wider variety of fruits and vegetables. The Egyptians drank beer and wine, and they produced a wide variety of both. The most famous Egyptian beverages were heqet (a kind of barley beer) and the wines of the Nile Delta and the oasis of the Western Desert.
The Egyptian family was the basic unit of society. Marriage was universal among the free population, and divorce was possible for both men and women (though more difficult for women). The eldest male was the head of the household, and the eldest female was often the manager of the household and the business affairs of the family. Children were welcomed, and the Egyptian love of children is one of the most charming features of Egyptian art.
The Egyptians enjoyed a wide range of entertainments. Music was popular, and the Egyptians were skilled musicians. Dancing was popular, especially at religious festivals. Board games were popular, and the Egyptian game of senet (a kind of backgammon) was one of the most popular board games of the ancient world. Sports were popular, and the Egyptians were particularly fond of wrestling, archery, and stick-fighting.
The Legacy of Ancient Egypt in Detail
The legacy of ancient Egypt is one of the most important in the history of the world. The Egyptian contributions to mathematics, science, medicine, art, architecture, religion, and government have been passed down to the modern world through a long chain of intermediaries, including the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, the Byzantines, and the modern Europeans.
The Egyptian contributions to mathematics are particularly important. The Egyptians were the first to develop a system of fractions, the first to use a base-10 number system, the first to develop a calendar of 365 days, the first to develop a system of surveying, and the first to develop a system of weights and measures. The famous Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, written around 1650 BCE, is one of the oldest mathematical texts in the world, and it contains solutions to a wide variety of mathematical problems.
The Egyptian contributions to medicine are also important. The famous Ebers Papyrus, written around 1550 BCE, contains descriptions of more than 700 remedies for a wide variety of diseases. The Edwin Smith Papyrus, written around 1600 BCE, is the oldest known surgical text, and it contains detailed descriptions of 48 surgical cases, including the diagnosis, the treatment, and the prognosis of each. The Egyptians were the first to develop a systematic approach to medicine, and many of their remedies are still in use today.
The Egyptian contributions to literature are also important. The famous Story of Sinuhe, the Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor, the Story of the Eloquent Peasant, the Westcar Papyrus, and the Instruction of Ptahhotep are all masterpieces of ancient Egyptian literature, and they have been the subject of intense study ever since their discovery.
The Egyptian contributions to religion and philosophy are also important. The Egyptian concept of the afterlife, the Egyptian concept of divine kingship, the Egyptian concept of cosmic order (ma’at), the Egyptian concept of the soul, and the Egyptian concept of the underworld have all been deeply influential on the development of Western religion. The Egyptian influence on the Greek religion, on the Jewish religion, on the Christian religion, and on the Islamic religion is now well established by modern scholarship.