Early Civilisations

Egypt

c. 3000 – 300 BC

Tony Leahy and Eleanor Simmance

This is an introduction to ancient Egypt and

its culture, not just its ‘history’!

Main features of each period…

• Because of the very broad nature of this course,

no single book covers everything. The following

are all good in different ways:

• M. Van de Mieroop, A history of ancient Egypt

• K. Bard, An Introduction to the Archaeology of

Ancient Egypt

• J. Baines and J. Malek, (Cultural) Atlas of

ancient Egypt

• S. Ikram, Ancient Egypt, An Introduction

• I Shaw (ed.), The Oxford history of ancient Egypt

Chronology

• Ancient Egyptian history has been classified by

‘dynasty’ (a family or line of kings) since at least the third century BC (Manetho).

• Modern historians have grouped these dynasties into broader periods for convenience.

• Dates are not exact until 664 BC, and every book you open will give slightly different dates for earlier periods. Do not worry about this.

• For this course, you only need to know which dynasties belong in which period, the order of the periods and approximate dates.

Dynasties, periods and dates • Dynasties Period Approximate dates

• 1-2 Archaic/Early Dynastic c. 3000-2600 BC

• 3-6 Old Kingdom c. 2600-2150 BC

• 7-11 First Intermediate Period c. 2150-2000 BC

• 12-13 Middle Kingdom c. 2000-1650 BC

• 14-17 Second Intermediate Period c. 1650-1550 BC

• 18-20 New Kingdom c. 1550-1070 BC

• 21-25 Third Intermediate Period c. 1070-664 BC

• 26 Saite Period 664-525 BC

• 27 Persian Period 526-404 BC

• 28-30 Late Period 404-332 BC

Herodotus wrote an account of

Egyptian history, c. 450 BC

valuable for foreign

relations from 650 BC but

not before

Manetho an Egyptian priest at Heliopolis wrote a history of Egypt in

Greek in the 3rd century BC.

Only a king-list survives and that only in copies made a thousand years

later.

His is the earliest use of the term ‘dynasty’ and his is the only king-list that

covers the whole pharaonic period.

A Greek from

Halicarnassus in south-

west Turkey, an area

with strong links to

Egypt in previous 200

years

Lack of ancient histories means our understanding has had to

be pieced together from the ancient monuments and artefacts

‘Egypt is the gift of the

Nile’ Herodotus

(5th century BC)

N.B. ‘Upper’ Egypt is the

south of the country!

Nile origins far to the south,

Ethiopian rainfall key to

annual flood that made

ancient Egypt possible

Africa, Asia, the Mediterranean

Middle Egypt

Note immediate transition from ‘Black land’ to ‘Red Land’

The Delta in the north

The first cataract

in the south

The living and the dead

Strong bias in extant evidence towards funerary sphere –

settlements on floodplain much less well preserved/accessible

The power of Hapy,

the annual inundation.

Village on the Nile

Hapy, personification of the Nile

Sunrise and sunset were

crucial times of day

The sun god Ra

(or Ra-Horakhty)

The importance of irrigation

Highly productive but labour-

intensive given limited technology

An abundance of grain

Travel and communication

Mud brick for houses - and palaces

Ancient and modern villages

Metallic wealth and trade imperatives

Gold from the Eastern Desert and from Nubia

- but silver, copper, tin had to be imported

Another reason to trade: poor quality timber

Acacia, sycamore, tamarisk flourish in Egyptian environment, but

building timber (cedar) had to be imported from Lebanon or Cyprus

Papyrus

Building for eternity

e.g. limestone,

sandstone, diorite,

basalt, granite,

quartzite

Egypt was first

society to use stone

extensively for

building and statuary

The enduring record:

king lists and Rosetta stone

Social hierarchy

• Pharaoh

• Elite

• Craftsmen and scribes

• Industrial/agricultural workers (90%?)

• Extant evidence relates mainly to pharaohs

and elite

• Social mobility, e.g. from slave to high official,

was possible (cf. biblical story of Joseph)

The Egyptian world view

Libyan Nubian Asiatic Egyptian

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/galleries/an

cient_egypt/room_61_tomb-chapel_nebamun.aspx

The tomb of Nebamun (18th Dynasty)