Early Dynastic Period: before 3000 - 2770 BC, 1st-2nd dynasties
       Upper and Lower Egypt unified ca. 3100 BC

Old Kingdom: ca. 2770-2200 BC, 3rd-6th dynasties
       "Age of the Pyramids"

First Intermediate Period: 7th-11th dynasties

Middle Kingdom: ca. 1990-1790 BC, 11th-14th dynasties

Second Intermediate Period: ca. 1790-1570 BC, 14th-17th dynasties
       Hyksos Invasions: c. 1674-1548 BC, 15th-16th dynasties

New Kingdom or Empire: ca. 1570-1100 BC, 18th-20th dynasties
       Akhenaten, Tutankhamen, Thutmose III, Hatshepsut (female pharaoh), Ramses I and II

Third Intermediate Period: ca. 1100-700 BC, 21st-25th dynasties

Late Period: ca. 700-332 BC, 26th-31st dynasties
       Alexander the Great

1. Geography and Environment. Map

Nile region (Nile and grain field)

Herodotus: "Egypt was the gift of the Nile"

Surrounding area: desert, Red Sea, Mediterranean

2. Implications and Consequences

A. Relative isolation >> unity and stability at formative stage ("the Japan of the Mediterranean")

B. Nile >> unity, communication, transportation (NASA picture of Nile from space)

C. Benign forces of nature >> view of world and gods

D. Need for irrigation and water management (manpower)

(irrigation canal)

3. Discovering the Past

Rosetta Stone

Champollion deciphered it, 1823

Hieroglyphics ("sacred writing")

(miniature coffin from Tutankhamen's tomb)

(columns of Temple of Amon at Karnak)

4. World/Religious Outlook

• polytheistic, anthropomorphic, theriomorphic (animal-shaped)
  • e.g., Thoth (writing): jackal or ibis-headed
    
  
  
• benign (in developed forms of myths)

• by Middle Kingdom: promise of afterlife for the just (ka = spirit/life-force, ba = soul)
  

• concepts of the afterlife

 B. TRADITION: MA'AT: "justice," "order," "truth"

i. Political and religious

• god Horus and the king: perpetuate ma'at
• king or pharaoh (as in the Bible) is divine: connected with Horus and Re (son of)
  • pyramids #1, #2
• principle of hereditary succession
• pharaonic regalia: crook and flail, crowns of Lower and Upper Egypt and uraeus
  

ii. the evidence of royal sculpture

mid 3rd millennium

sculpture of Chephren

Myrcerinus and Khamerernabty

mid 2nd millennium

sculptures of Thutmose III, #1, #2

end 2nd millenium

temple of Ramses II, Abu Simbel, detail, #1, #2

C. Exception or change: New Kingdom: "Egyptian Empire" (ca. 1550-1100 BC)

• expansion and consolidation
• attempt at change: Amenhotep IV = Akhenaten (1363-1347 BC)

  Amenhotep = "Amen rests"

  Akhenaten = "Aten is satisfied" 

• Amen (Amon, Ammon)

• Aten (solar disk, often represented as rays of sun)
  

• Nefertiti > Nefernefruaten = "beautiful is the beauty of Aton"

• capital: Tel el Amarna ("the Amarna period" or "the Amarna heresy")
  

• Tutankhaten >> Tutankhamen
  

• capital: Thebes

• After Tutankhamen's death at the age of 19, polytheism and the theocratic nature of Egypt return, especially under Hatshepsut, Thutmose, and the two Ramses.  We hear little more of Egypt until she is conquered by Alexander the Great in 322 BC.


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