Ancient Egypt

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The Great Sphinx of Giza and Khafre's pyramid

Landmarks of Ancient Egypt

A typical Naqada II jar decorated with gazelles. (Predynastic period)

Ancient Egypt, or the Kingdom of Kemet, was a society that began about 3150 BC,[1] and lasted
until 20 BC when it was invaded by the Roman Empire.

Egypt grew along the River Nile and was at its most powerful in the second millennium BC. Its
land went from the Nile delta to Nubia, a kingdom which today is mostly in the Sudan.

For most of its history, Egypt was prosperous, since the water from the Nile made sure that the
Egyptians would have good crops. Crops were grown after the Nile flood water went down.

The Egyptians created a way of writing using hieroglyphs, built huge temples and tombs, traded
with other areas, and had a powerful army. Their religion had many gods, and its priests were
powerful and rich. Their rulers, called Pharaohs, were thought to be close to the gods.
Contents
 1History
 2Government
 3Language and writing
o 3.1Language
o 3.2Writing
 3.2.1Hieroglyphics
 3.2.2Hieratic script
 3.2.3Demotic script
 3.2.4Coptic script
o 3.3Literature
 4Religion
 5Agriculture
 6Medicine
 7Pyramids
 8Other achievements
 9Timeline
o 9.1Predynastic
o 9.2Dynastic
 10Related pages
 11References

History[change | change source]

Archaeologists, who study objects left by ancient people, have found that people have lived
along the Nile for a very long time. The fertile flood plains of the Nile allowed people to begin
farming. By the 10th millennium BC, the people in Egypt had begun growing cereal grains like
wheat and barley. Because they were farming, they stayed in one place, and because they were
settled, their society became more complex. This was an important step in the history of human
civilization.[2]

This period in Egyptian history is called predynastic, as it happened before the large dynastic
kingdoms were formed. By about 5500 BC, small tribes living in the Nile valley had developed
into a series of cultures. Each had begun farming crops and animals. Each had their own types of
pottery and personal items, such as combs, bracelets, and beads. In Upper Egypt, the south part
of the country, the Badarian was one of the earliest cultures. It is known for its high quality
pottery, stone tools, and its use of copper.[3] They were followed by the Amratian and Gerzian
cultures.[4]

The different periods of ancient Egyptian history are:

 Predynastic Period (5500 – 3000 BC)

 Early Dynastic Period (1st & 2nd Dynasties, 3000 – 2700 BC)
 Old Kingdom (3rd to 6th Dynasties, 2700 – 2180 BC)
  First Intermediate Period (7th to 11th Dynasties, 2180 – 2050 BC)
 Middle Kingdom (11th to 14th Dynasties, 2080 – 1640 BC)
 Second Intermediate Period (15th to 17th Dynasties, 1640 – 1560 BC; the Hyksos)
 New Kingdom (18th to 20th Dynasties, 1560 – 1070 BC)
 Third Intermediate Period (21st to 25th Dynasties, 1070 – 664 BC)
 Late Period (26th to 31st Dynasties, 664 – 323 BC; the Persians)
 Graeco-Roman Egypt (323 – 30 BC; Ptolemaic to Roman)

The Intermediate periods included times when the traditional system broke down, the country
was split, or invaded by foreign rulers. Egypt's culture and climate was relatively stable,
compared to other parts of the Middle East. Nevertheless, they had some periods when their
government was challenged and sometimes overthrown.

Government[change | change source]

The Narmer Pallette records the unification of Upper & Lower Egypt, ~3200 BC. Original in
Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

Ancient Egypt was split up into many different districts called sepats. The first divisions were
created during the Predynastic Period, but then, they were small city-states that ruled themselves.
When the first pharaoh came to power, the sepats remained and were much like the counties in
many countries today. They stayed basically the same for a long time – there were 42 of them,
and each was ruled by a governor chosen by the pharaoh. In later years the districts were called
nomes and the governor was called a nomarch.

Ancient Egypt had a lot of different taxes, but there was no real money, so people paid each
other with goods or work. The person who watched the tax collection was a scribe, and every tax
collector in Egypt had to tell him every day how many taxes they had collected. Each person
paid different taxes based on the work that they did: craftsmen paid in goods, hunters and
fishermen paid with food, and every single household in the country had to pay a labour tax
every year by helping with work for the country like mining or for canals. A lot of rich Egyptians
paid poorer people to