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The history of Egypt began around 8000 BC. Discovered artifacts point to a prosperous agricultural civilization. As the land was mostly arid, nomadic hunter-gatherers sought the cool waters of the Nile Valley and settled sometime before 6000 BC, beginning organized agriculture in the region.
It is important to note that there is no consensus on the historical dates presented here, which does not mean that certain sources are correct, and others are incorrect. Historians, researchers, and archaeologists have different methods and historical sources for constructing historiography, a big puzzle where, sometimes, some pieces are missing.
The Badari Culture (5000 BC to 4000 BC) was a primitive civilization that inhabited Upper Egypt and the Eastern Sahara Desert during the Neolithic Period or Predynastic Era of Egypt, whose name originates from El-Badari, the place where its remains were discovered, covering an area 30 km west of the Nile. Evidence was found that this civilization already practiced agriculture and that it managed to implement several advances, contributing significantly to the diversity of advanced characteristics of the later Egyptian civilization.
The written history of Ancient Egypt
The history of Ancient Egypt in the written phase occurred between 3300 BC and 332 BC. Therefore, there are 2700 years of history, considered by historiography as the longest documented human experience of political, cultural, and military continuity. Ancient Egypt was the first unified kingdom in history, with a spoken language that remained stable for 4500 years. In the period from 3000 BC to 500 AD, its cultural patterns, written language, conceptions of royalty, religion and art were unchanged.
By 3500 BC, mummification was already practiced in the city of Hierakonpolis and large stone tombs were being built in Abydos. Xois is already mentioned as an ancient city between 3100 BC and 2181 BC in the well-known Palermo Stone, a designation attributed to a fragment of a basalt stone on which a list of Egyptian kings from pre-dynasty until Neiferocare or Neferqueres, third pharaoh of the Fifth Egyptian Dynasty. The name is because the fragment has been found in the Archaeological Museum of Palermo, Sicily, since 1877.
Predynastic Era
The arrival of different peoples in this region allowed the formation of small communities called nomo. Each nomo was autonomous in its decisions. As time passed, it became necessary to unify these fragments of territories. As a result, Lower Egypt (north) and Upper Egypt (south) were formed, around 3500 BC. The southern part of Ancient Egypt was close to mountains and had a higher altitude in relation to the other region, hence the name Upper Egypt; In the northern portion, the altitude was lower, with the proximity of the Mediterranean Sea, hence the term Lower Egypt.
Dynastic Era
After a certain political stability, revolts began to break out that weakened the king's authority and altered the political and social balance of the Egyptians. Over the next six hundred years, the kings dedicated themselves to reorganizing the country, even conquering new territories, such as Palestine. However, the civilization was attacked by the Hyksos, nomadic Asian peoples and was subjugated for approximately 170 years.
The Egyptians organized themselves militarily, got rid of Hyksos power and formed a more organized society. However, the struggle between groups from the higher social classes resulted in a general weakening of politics. These difficulties led to decadence and invasion by Hebrews, Assyrians, Persians among other eastern peoples.
First Dynasty (c. 2925 BC to c. 2775 BC)
The beginning of the historical period is characterized by the introduction of written records in the form of names and regnal years, later collected in documents such as the Palermo Stone. The foundations of the State and society were established. Hieroglyphic writing, burial in stone tombs and pyramids developed. The king, considered a god, held the political and religious powers of the entire territory, whose capital was Memphis.
There was the unification of the northern and southern kingdoms under King Menes (also called Meni or Manes) of Upper Egypt, who conquered Lower Egypt (c. 3118 BC or c. 3150 BC). This version of ancient history comes from the Aegyptica (History of Egypt) by the ancient historian Manetho (third century BC). Although later historians have disputed this chronology, it continues to be consulted regarding dynastic succession and the early history of Ancient Egypt.
Manetho's work is the only source that cites Menes; it is believed that the man Manetho referred to as "Menes" was Narmer, who peacefully unified Upper and Lower Egypt under the same government. However, this identification is not universally accepted. Menes has been associated, with equal credibility, with his successor, King Hor-Aha (c. 3100 BC to 3050 BC).
One possible explanation for the association of Menes with his predecessor and successor is that Menes (the who survives) is an honorific that could have been used to refer to more than one king. The claim that the country was unified through a military campaign is also questioned, as the famous Narmer Palette, which represents a military victory, is considered pure propaganda by some experts. Peaceful unification is possible but unlikely.
Narmer ruled from the city of Hierakonpolis and later from Memphis and Abydos. Trade increased significantly under the rulers of the Old Kingdom. Precursors to the pyramids, mastabas began to appear in funerary practices that included increasingly elaborate mummification techniques.
The magnitude of the pyramids on the Giza plateau is a testament to the power and wealth of the rulers of that time. There is still no consensus on any of the theories behind the construction of these monuments and tombs. Some researchers say they could not be built with the technology of that time, while others claim that the existence of such buildings and tombs suggests superior technology that was lost over time.
Most experts reject the claim that slaves built these monuments. These constructions were considered public works created by the State. Workers with or without experience were hired and everyone received wages. Workers at the Giza site received a ration of beer three times a day, accommodation, tools, and healthcare.
The Second Dynasty (c. 2775 BC to c. 2650 BC)
The name Horus of the first king, Hetepsekhemwy, means “peaceful towards the two powers” and may allude to the conclusion of the conflict between two factions or parts of the country, to the antagonistic gods Horus and Seth, or to both. He and his successor, Reneb, moved their burial sites to Ṣaqqārah; the tomb of the third king, Nynetjer, has not been found.
In the second half of the dynasty there was conflict and rival lines of kings, some of which are preserved on stone vessels from the Step Pyramid of the Third Dynasty in Ṣaqqārah or in king lists. Peribsen took the title of Seth rather than that of Horus and was probably opposed by Horus Khasekhem, whose name is known only to Kawm al-Aḥmar with the programmatic epithet “effective sandal against evil.”
The last ruler of the dynasty combined the titles of Horus and Seth to form the Horus-and-Seth Khasekhemwy, “arising in relation to the two powers, the two lords are at peace in him.” It was probably Khasekhem, after the defeat of his rivals, mainly Peribsen. Both Peribsen and Khasekhemwy had tombs at Abydos.
The Third Dynasty (c. 2650 BC to c. 2575 BC)
Djoser (named after Horus Netjerykhet) was one of the most prominent kings of Egypt. His step pyramid at Ṣaqqārah is the culmination of an era and, at the same time, the precursor of later conquests. His successor, Sekhemkhet, planned an even grander step pyramid complex at Ṣaqqārah. The burial place of Huni, the last king of the dynasty, is unknown. It has often been suggested that he built the pyramid of Maydūm, but it was probably the work of his successor.
The Fourth Dynasty (c. 2575 BC to c. 2465 BC)
Snefru, the first king, probably built the stepped pyramid of Maydūm and later modified it to form the first true pyramid. To the west of Maydūm was the small step pyramid of Saylah, at Al-Fayyūm. He built two pyramids at Dahshūr. His son and successor, Redjedef, started a pyramid at Abū Ruwaysh. The last known king, Shepseskaf, built a monumental mastaba in southern Ṣaqqārah and was the only Old Kingdom ruler not to build a pyramid.
The Palermo Stone records a campaign into Lower Nubia in the reign of Snefru. The Egyptians founded a settlement at Buhen, at the northern end of the Second Cataract, which lasted two hundred years. No archaeological remains of a settled population in Lower Nubia have been found during the Old Kingdom Period. The kings of the Fourth Dynasty identified themselves, at least since the time of Redjedef, as Son of Re (the sun god); Worship of the sun god reached its peak in the Fifth Dynasty.
Fifth Dynasty (c. 2465 BC to c. 2325 BC)
Khentkaues, belonging to the royal family of the Fourth Dynasty was the mother of the first two kings, Userkaf and Sahure. Nefercare, the third king, may also have been her son. One tradition says that they were true worshipers of the sun god and implies, perhaps falsely, that the kings of the Fourth Dynasty were not the sons of a priest of Re.
Six kings of the Fifth Dynasty demonstrated their devotion to the sun god by building personal temples for his worship. These temples probably had a mortuary significance for the king, as well as a tribute to the god. Two of them so far identified are situated in an analogous way to the pyramids. Seven of the nine kings of the dynasty had their pyramids identified at Ṣaqqārah (Userkaf and Unas), Abū Ṣīr (Sahure, Nejantekare, Reneferef and Neuserre) and southern Ṣaqqārah (Djedkare Izezi).
The kings Menkauhor, Djedkare Izezi and Unas did not have personal names composed of “-Re,” the name of the sun god (Djedkare is a name assumed at ascension). Izezi and Unas did not build solar temples. There was then a slight departure from the solar cult that may be linked to the rise of Osiris, the god of the dead, first attested in the reign of Neuserre.
Sixth Dynasty (c. 2325 BC to c. 2150 BC)
A cemetery with large tombs, including those of several viziers, was built around the pyramid of Teti (the first king), in the northern portion of Ṣaqqārah. It is the latest group of private Old Kingdom monuments in the Memphite area, along with the tombs near the pyramid of Unas.
Three biographies of Elephantine officials record commercial expeditions to the south during the reigns of Pepi I and Pepi II. The location of the regions is debated and may have been as far away as Butāna, south of the Fifth Cataract. Some of the trade routes passed through the Western Desert, where the Egyptians established an administrative post at Balāṭ, in the Al-Dākhilah oasis, some distance west of the Al-Khārijah oasis.
To the north, the state of Karmah extended to the Second Cataract and sometimes beyond. Its southern extent has not been determined, but similar material culture sites are spread over vast areas of central Sudan. Especially during the ninety-four-year reign of Pepi II, the province-establishing trends of the late Fifth Dynasty continued into the Sixth. An increasing number of officials resided in the provinces and emphasized local concerns, including religious leadership.
Seventh and Eighth Dynasties (c. 2150 BC to c. 2130 BC)
Pepi II was followed by several ephemeral rulers, who in turn were succeeded by the short-lived Seventh Dynasty and the Eighth of Manetho's history, when Ibi, one of his kings, built a small pyramid in the south of Taqqārah. Several kings of the Eighth Dynasty are known from inscriptions found in the temple of Min at Qifṭ (Coptos) in the south. The instability of the throne is, however, a sign of political decay, and centralized government may have been accepted only because there was no alternative style of government to royalty.
With the end of the Eighth Dynasty, the Old Empire's system of control collapsed. There was hunger and violence. The country became impoverished and decentralized, the root cause of which may have been political failure, environmental disaster, or, more likely, a combination of the two. A related succession of low floods may have coincided with the decline of central political authority.
The First Intermediate Period (2181 BC to 2040 BC)
The Middle Kingdom is considered Egypt's "classical era” when art and culture reached their peak and Thebes became the country's most important and richest city. The first army was created by king Amenemhat I (c. 1991 BC to 1962 BC); the construction of the Karnak temple began with Senruset I (c. 1971 BC to 1926 BC).
During this period, the king's power increased, cities were created, public works were conducted and cultivated land expanded.
To the south, the Egyptians conquered Nubia and conducted victorious campaigns to the east, in Libya and Syria. The king's power was reduced because of the decentralization of power caused by the increased complexity of the kingdom that required greater local control. From 1800 BC onwards, foreign peoples, such as the Hyksos, conquered and divided Egypt into several sub-kingdoms. Reunification occurred only after Ahmes I expelled the Hyksos from their territory.
Throughout Egypt, independent districts developed with their own governors, until two great centers emerged: Hierakonpolis in Lower Egypt and Thebes in Upper Egypt. These cities founded their own dynasties that ruled their regions independently and fought intermittently among themselves for supreme control until about 2040 BC, when the Theban king Mentuhotep II (c. 2061 BC to 2010 BC) defeated the armies of Hierakonpolis and unified the Egypt under the rule of Thebes.
Ninth Dynasty (c. 2130 BC to 2080 BC)
The throne passed to the kings of Heracleopolis, who made it their capital, although Memphis continued to be important. They were recognized throughout the country, but the inscriptions of the nomarchs (chiefs of the nomo) in the south show that the rule of the kings was nominal.
Ankhtify, the nomarch of the al-Jabalayn region, recorded his annexation of the Idfū name and extensive raids in the Thebes area. He recognized King Neferkare but campaigned with his own troops. The main themes of inscriptions from the period are the nomarch's provision of food to his people in times of famine and his success in promoting irrigation works to curb poverty and crop failure.
Tenth Dynasty (c. 2080 BC to c. 1970 BC) and Eleventh Dynasty (2081 BC to 1938 BC)
The founder of the Tenth or Eleventh dynasty was named Khety, and the dynasty was called the House of Khety. Several Heracleopolitan kings were named Khety; another important name is Merikare. There were intermittent conflicts and the border between the two kingdoms shifted around the Abydos region.
Several important literary texts purport to describe the upheavals of the First Intermediate Period. The Instruction to Merikare, for example, has been attributed to one of the kings of Heracleopolis. The first Egyptologists even assumed a Heracleopolitan literary flourishing. Today, however, there is a tendency to date them to the Middle Kingdom, so that they would have been written with sufficient hindsight to allow for a more effective critique of the sacred order.
Armant, on the west bank of the Nile, was the center of the Theban name. The dynasty honored as its ancestor the Father of God Mentuhotep, probably the father of its first king, Inyotef I (2081 BC to 65 BC), whose successors were Inyotef II (2065 BC to 2016) and Inyotef III (2016 BC to 2008 BC. ). The fourth king, Mentuhotep II (2008 BC to 1957 BC), whose throne name was Nebhepetre, gradually reunited Egypt and expelled the Heracleopolitans, changing his title in stages to record his conquests.
He later assumed the name Horus, Divine of the White Crown, implicitly claiming all Upper Egypt. In the year of his reign, it was changed to Unifier of the Two Lands, a traditional royal epithet which he revived with a literal meaning. He was celebrated as the founder of the Middle Kingdom. His notable mortuary complex at Dayr al-Baḥrī, which appears to have no pyramid, was the architectural inspiration for Hatshepsut's later structure, built next door.
The Hyksos, probably from the Syria/Palestine region, first appeared in Egypt around 1800 BC and settled in the city of Avaris. They accumulated power until they took control of a significant part of Lower Egypt in approximately 1720 BC, leaving the Theban Dynasty of Upper Egypt almost a vassal state.
At the same time as they controlled the ports of Lower Egypt, around 1700 BC the kingdom of Kush ascended south to Thebes, in Nubia, and dominated that border. The Egyptians mounted several campaigns to expel the Hyksos and subdue the Nubians, but they all failed until the Theban prince Ahmosis I (c. 1570 BC to 1544 BC) managed to unify the country under Theban rule.
The New Kingdom (c. 1539 BC to 1075 BC)
It was a period of high militarism, considered the height of conquests, wealth and power, a time of splendor in which the pharaohs Thutmes I, Amenophis III, Akhenaton and Ramses II stood out. At that time, the kings began to be buried in the Valley of the Kings, in richly decorated secret underground tombs. In 1100 BC, the Assyrians, Persians, and Greeks conquered Egypt until the final takeover by the Romans in 31 BC.
Eighteenth Dynasty (c. 1539 BC to 1292 BC)
Ahmose (c 1514 BC to 1493 BC) succeeded Kamose, his father or brother. Egyptian tradition considered him the founder of a new dynasty because he was the native ruler who reunited Egypt. He married his sister Ahmose-Nofretari. The queen received the title of God's Wife of Amun. The title of pharaoh to refer to the king of Egypt comes from this period; previous monarchs were simply called kings.
Ahmose's campaigns to expel the Hyksos from the Nile Delta and recover ancient Egyptian territory to the south probably began around his tenth regnal year. By destroying the Hyksa fortress at Avaris in the Eastern Delta, he finally drove them across the eastern border and then besieged Sharuḥen (Tell el-Fārʿah) in southern Palestine.
The early bureaucracy of the New Kingdom was modeled on that of the Middle Kingdom. The vizier was the chief administrator and supreme judge of the kingdom. In the mid-15th century BC, the position was divided into two, one vizier for Upper Egypt and the other for Lower Egypt. During the Eighteenth Dynasty some young bureaucrats were educated in Templar schools, reinforcing the integration of the civil and priestly sectors.
Amenofis I – (c. 1514 BC to 1493 BC)
Amenophis I, Ahmose's son, and successor, pushed the Egyptian frontier south to the Third Cataract, near the state capital of Karmah, while also gathering tribute from his Asian possessions and, perhaps, campaigning in Syria. It was a time of greater devotion to the state god Amun-Re, whose worship was widely practiced as Egypt was enriched by the spoils of war.
The riches were handed over to the god's treasuries and, as a sign of filial piety, the king ordered the construction of sacred monuments in Thebes. The pyramidal shape of the royal tomb was changed to a rock-cut tomb. Apart from Akhenaten, all subsequent rulers of the New Kingdom were buried in hidden tombs in the famous Valley of the Kings (west of Thebes). The location of his own tomb, however, is unknown.
Thutmes I (1493 BC to 1482 BC)
Thutmes I (one of Amenophis I's generals) married his own sister, Ahmos. He destroyed the state of Karmah and inscribed a rock as a boundary marker, later confirmed by Thutmes III, near Kanisa-Kurgus, north of the Fifth Cataract. He was also responsible for a brilliant campaign in Syria and across the Euphrates River, where he erected a victory stele near Carchemish.
The Egyptian conquests in the Middle East and Africa reached their greatest extent, but they would not have been maintained. Apparently, his successor Thutmes II (c. 1482 BC to 1479 BC), married to his sister and queen Hatshepsut, continued his policies. Thutmes II had only a young daughter with Hatshepsut, but a minor wife gave him Thutmes.
Thutmes III and Hatshepsut (1479 BC to c. 1458 BC)
During the early years of Thutmes III's reign, Hatshepsut ruled as regent. Sometime between the second and seventh years of Thutmes III's reign, she herself assumed the kingship, when the oracle of Amun proclaimed her king at Karnak. A more propagandistic account, preserved in texts and reliefs from her splendid mortuary temple at Dayr al-Baḥrī, ignores the reign of Thutmes II and claims that her father, Thutmes I, proclaimed her his successor.
Although she was portrayed in her reliefs as male, pronominal references in the texts often reflect her femininity. In much of her statue she appears in male form, but there are rarer examples that portray her as a woman. In less formal documents, she was called “The King's Great Wife” (Thuthmes III).
Thutmes III proceeded to Gaza with his army and then to Yehem, subduing rebellious Palestinian towns along the way. His annals relate how, in a consultation about the best route over the Mount Carmel range, the king chose the shortest but most dangerous route through the ʿArūnah pass. He himself led the troops. The Egyptians attacked at dawn and prevailed over the enemy troops, besieging Megiddo. The siege ended with a treaty by which the Syrian princes swore an oath of submission to the king.
At the end of the first campaign, Egyptian rule extended north to a line connecting Byblos with Damascus. The Asian princes surrendered their weapons, including many horses and chariots. He appointed Asian princes to rule the cities and took his brothers and sons to Egypt, where they were educated at court. Most returned home to serve as loyal vassals. To ensure the loyalty of the Asian city-states, Egypt maintained garrisons to suppress the insurrection and supervise the delivery of tribute.
Thutmes III's goal was to defeat Mitanni. He used the navy to transport troops to Asian coastal cities, avoiding arduous land marches. Across the Euphrates, they devastated the countryside around Carchemish, but the city was not taken and the Mitannian prince managed to escape. Even so, Babylon, Assyria and the Hittites sent tribute in recognition of Egyptian rule.
Although he never subdued Mitanni, he put Egypt's conquests on a firm footing through constant campaigns and began true imperial Egyptian rule in Nubia. Much of the land became the property of Egypt and local cultural traits disappeared from the archaeological record. Open cities developed around administrative centers, and in several temples outside their walls the cult of the divine king was established.
Lower Nubia provided gold, precious and semi-precious stones. Further south came African tropical woods, perfumes, oil, ivory, animal skins and ostrich plumes. There are almost no traces of local population from the end of the New Kingdom when several temples were built in Nubia. At the end of the Twentieth Dynasty, the region had almost no established prosperous population. Many temples were built, and large sums were donated to the estate of Amun-Re. The capital was moved to Memphis, but Thebes remained the religious center.
Amenophis II
About two years before his death, Thutmes III appointed his eighteen-year-old son, Amenophis II (c. 1426 BC to 1400 BC), as co-regent. Amenophis II began a campaign in an area of Syria near Kadesh, whose city-states participated in the power struggle between Egypt and Mitanni. He killed seven princes and sent their bodies to Egypt to be suspended from the walls of Thebes and Napata.
He campaigned in Asia in years seven and eight. With the revolt in the coastal city of Ugarit, Egyptian control over Syria required bases along the coast for operations in the interior and for supplying the army. Ugarit was pacified and the allegiance of the Syrian cities, including Kadesh, was reconfirmed.
Thutmes IV (1400 BC to 1390 BC)
Thutmes IV, son of Amenophis II, sought to establish peaceful relations with Artatama, king of Mitanni, who was successful against the Hittites. Artatama gave his daughter in marriage, the prerequisite of which was probably the Egyptian cession of some Syrian city-states to the Mitanian sphere of influence.
Amenophis III (1390 BC to 1353 BC)
Thutmes IV's son, Amenophis III ascended the throne around the age of twelve and soon married Tiy, his queen. At first, the military served as royal guardians. As Tiy's father was a chariot commander, the royal lineage became even more influenced by the military. In his fifth year, he claimed a victory over the rebellious Cush, the southern portion of Nubia. The campaign may have led to Butāna, west of the ʿAṭbarah River, further south than any previous Egyptian military expedition.
Peaceful relations with Asia prevailed and control of Egypt's vassals was successfully maintained. A scarab commemorating the king's tenth year announced the arrival in Egypt of the Mitanian princess Gilukhepa, along with three hundred and seventeen women. Thus, another diplomatic marriage helped maintain friendly relations between Egypt and its former enemy.
At Karnak he erected the enormous third pillar and at Luxor he dedicated a magnificent new temple to Amun. His own mortuary temple, in western Thebes, was incomparable in size; little remains today, but its famous Colossi of Memnon bear witness to its proportions. He also built a huge port and palace complex nearby.
Among the highest-ranking officials in Thebes were men of Lower Egyptian origin, who built large tombs with highly refined decoration. The first important monuments of the New Kingdom preserved in Memphis are also from this reign.
His last years were spent in ill health. Judging by his mummy and the less formal representations of him in Amarna, he was obese when, after thirty-eight years of reign, he died and was succeeded by his son Amenophis IV, the most controversial of all the kings of Egypt.
Amenophis IV, later Akhenaten
Amenophis IV (1353 BC to 1336 BC), in his fifth year of reign, changed his name to Akhenaten (“One Useful to Aten” or “The living spirit of Aten”). From the beginning he gave the sun god a didactic title by naming Aten, the solar disk, declaring his religious allegiance by the unprecedented use of “high priest of the sun god” as one of his titles. The term Aten had long been in use, but under Thutmes IV the Aten was referred to as a god, and under Amenophis III such references became more frequent.
Amenophis IV carried forward other radical trends that had recently developed in solar religion, in which the sun god was freed from his traditional mythological context and presented as the only beneficent provider for the world. The king's own divinity was emphasized: Aten was said to be his father, of whom only he had knowledge, and both shared the status of king and celebrated jubilees together.
Akhenaten built many temples to Aten, the most important of which were in the temple precincts of Amun-Re at Karnak. In these open-air structures a highly stylized round relief and sculpture form was developed. The Aten was represented not in anthropomorphic form, but as a solar disk from which radiant arms extend the hieroglyph of “life” to the nose of the king and his family.
During the construction of these temples, the worship of Amun and other gods was suspended, and the worship of Aten in an open-air sanctuary replaced that of , who lived in a dark sanctuary in the temple of Karnak.
He moved the capital to a virgin site at Amarna (Tell el-Amarna; Al-ʿAmārinah) in Middle Egypt, where he built Akhetaton (“the Horizon of Aton”), a well-planned city comprising temples of Aten, palaces, official buildings and , villas for upper echelons and extensive residential neighborhoods. In the cliffs of the eastern desert surrounding the city, tombs were excavated for the courtiers, and deep in an isolated wadi the royal tomb was prepared. The tomb reliefs and stelae depict the lives of the royal family with an unprecedented degree of intimacy.
An intense persecution of the oldest gods was undertaken, especially Amun, who had his name excised from many older monuments throughout the country. Akhenaten's religious and cultural revolution was highly personal, in that he appears to have had a direct hand in elaborating the precepts of Aten religion and the conventions of Amarna art.
In religion, the emphasis was on the life-sustaining power of the sun, and naturalistic scenes adorned the walls and even the floors of Amarna's buildings. The king's role in determining the composition of the court is expressed in epithets given to the officials he selected from the lower strata of society, including the military. Few officials had any connection with the former ruling elite, and some courtiers who had been accepted at the beginning of the reign were purged.
A vital innovation was the introduction of vernacular forms into written language which, in later decades, led to the appearance of current verb forms in monumental inscriptions. The New Kingdom vernacular form, which is now known as Late Egyptian, appears fully developed in letters of the late nineteenth and twentieth dynasties. In the Middle East, Egypt's control over its possessions was no longer secure. Between Akhenaten's reign and the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty, Egypt lost control of much of Syria.
Tutankhamun – (1336 BC to c. 1327 BC)
Akhenaten's son, Tutankhaten, a child of nine years old married Ankhesenpaaten, Akhenaten's third daughter. Around his third year of reign, he moved the capital to Memphis, abandoned the cult of Aten and changed his name to Tutankhamun, to honor the ancestral god Amun, and the queen's to Ankhesenamen.
In an inscription that records Tutankhamun's actions towards the gods, the Amarna period is described as one of misery and the withdrawal of the gods from Egypt. This change, made in the name of the young king, was probably the work of senior officials. The most influential were Ay, known by the title Father of God, who served as vizier and regent, and General Horemheb, who served as royal deputy. Tutankhamun's reign and life were short due to his early death. Today, what most is known about him is the intact grandeur of his tomb, discovered in 1922.
Just as Akhenaten adapted and transformed the religious thought current in his day, the reaction to the Amarna religion was influenced by the rejected doctrine. In the new doctrine, all the gods were three: Amon, Re and Ptah, and in a sense, they were also one. The earliest evidence of this triad is in a trumpet of Tutankhamun related to the name of these gods of the three main divisions of the army. This concentration on a small number of essential deities is possibly related to the piety of the Ramesside period that followed.
Ay and Horemheb
Tutankhamun's funeral around 1323 BC was conducted by his successor, the elderly Ay (1323 BC to 1319 BC), who in turn was succeeded by Horemheb (1319 BC to c. 1292 BC), but the length of his reign is not certain. Horemheb dismantled many monuments erected by Akhenaten and his successors. In Luxor and Karnak, he appropriated the reliefs of Tutankhamun. Horemheb appointed officials and priests not from established families but from the army. He issued police regulations that addressed misbehavior by palace officials and reformed the judicial system, reorganizing the courts and selecting new judges.
The Ramsesid Period (Nineteenth and Twentieth dynasties) (1292 BC to 1075 BC)
Horemheb was the first post-Amarna king to be considered legitimate in the Nineteenth Dynasty. The reigns of the Amarna pharaohs would eventually be subsumed within their own, leaving no official record of what posterity considered an unorthodox and unpleasant interlude. Having no son, he chose his general and vizier, Ramses, to succeed him.
Ramses I and Seti I
Ramses I (1292 BC to 1290 BC) came from the Eastern Nile Delta. He was succeeded by his son and co-regent, Seti I, who buried him and provided him with mortuary buildings at Thebes and Abydos. Thanks to the efficiency of his government, he initiated the most elaborate construction projects of any Egyptian ruler. His temple at Abu Simbel (built for his queen Nefertiti) depicts the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC (between Ramses II of Egypt and Muwatalli II of the Hittites).
Under the reign of Ramses II, the Treaty of Kadesh, the world's first peace treaty, was signed in 1258 BC. Ramses II's fourth son, Khaemwaset (c. 1281 BC - c. 1225 BC) is known as the "first Egyptologist ", thanks to the work he carried out in preserving and recording ancient monuments, temples and the names of their original owners. He lived to be ninety-six, more than double the average life expectancy in Egypt. Many feared that the end of the world had come along with his death.
The decline of Egypt
Ramses III (1186 BC to 1155 BC) continued his policy, but Egypt's great wealth caught the attention of the Sea Peoples, of unknown origin. It is believed that they came from the southern Aegean region. Between 1276 BC and 1178 BC, Ramses II defeated them in a naval battle at the beginning of his reign, as did his successor, Merenptah (1213 BC to 1203 BC). However, after Merenptah's death, they sacked Kadesh. Between 1180 BC and 1178 BC, Ramses III defeated them at the Battle of Xois in 1178 BC.
The Cushite king Piye (752 BC to 722 BC) once again unified Egypt, but in early 671 BC, under his successor, Ashurbanipal, led by Esaradon, the Assyrians began an invasion, conquering Egypt in 666 BC. Without any plan In the long term, the Assyrians abandoned Egypt.
In 525 BC, Egypt had already been rebuilt and fortified, when it was attacked by Cambyses II, king of Persia. Knowing the reverence that the Egyptians had for cats, living representations of the popular goddess Bastet, the Persian king ordered his men to paint cats on their shields and bring the felines and other sacred animals of the Egyptians, placing them at the front of the army in Battle of Pelusium. The Egyptian armies surrendered, and the country fell into the hands of the Persians. Egypt would remain under Persian occupation until the arrival of Alexander the Great in 332 BC.
Alexander was welcomed as a liberator and conquered Egypt without a fight. He established the city of Alexandria and conquered Phenicia and the rest of the Persian empire. After his death in 323 BC, his general Ptolemy I Soter took his body back to Alexandria and founded the Ptolemaic Dynasty (323 BC to 30 BC). The last of the Ptolemies was Cleopatra VII, who committed suicide in 30 BC after the defeat of her armies, and those of her consort, Mark Antony, by the Romans under the orders of Caesar Octavius at the Battle of Actium (31 BC). After that, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire (30 BC to 476 BC) and then of the Byzantine Empire (c. 527 to 646), until it was conquered by the Muslim Arabs under Caliph Umar in 646 and fell under the rule Islamic.
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