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Feb 17, 2011 · Then, in 332 BC, the arrival of Alexander the Great heralded the end of the Egyptian way of life. All ancient civilisations have contributed in some way to the development of modern society. The ...
Twitter. Egyptian Archaeology is our full-colour magazine, published in spring and autumn, reporting on current excavations, surveys and research in Egypt, showcasing the work of the EES as well as of other missions and researchers. Read the latest issues online now. Banner image: The capital of column 5 (after conservation) below the eastern ...
- Overview
- Life in ancient Egypt
Egyptian kings are commonly called pharaohs, following the usage of the Bible. The term pharaoh is derived from the Egyptian per ʿaa (“great estate”) and to the designation of the royal palace as an institution. This term was used increasingly from about 1400 BCE as a way of referring to the living king.
What were the two types of writing in ancient Egypt?
The two basic types of writing in ancient Egypt were hieroglyphs, which were used for monuments and display, and the cursive form known as hieratic, invented at much the same time in late predynastic Egypt (c. 3000 BCE).
Which pharaoh probably built the first true pyramid?
Snefru was the first king of ancient Egypt of the 4th dynasty (c. 2575–c. 2465 BCE). He probably built the step pyramid of Maydūm and then modified it to form the first true pyramid.
Who was the first king to unify Upper and Lower Egypt?
Ancient Egypt can be thought of as an oasis in the desert of northeastern Africa, dependent on the annual inundation of the Nile River to support its agricultural population. The country’s chief wealth came from the fertile floodplain of the Nile valley, where the river flows between bands of limestone hills, and the Nile delta, in which it fans into several branches north of present-day Cairo. Between the floodplain and the hills is a variable band of low desert that supported a certain amount of game. The Nile was Egypt’s sole transportation artery.
The First Cataract at Aswān, where the riverbed is turned into rapids by a belt of granite, was the country’s only well-defined boundary within a populated area. To the south lay the far less hospitable area of Nubia, in which the river flowed through low sandstone hills that in most regions left only a very narrow strip of cultivable land. Nubia was significant for Egypt’s periodic southward expansion and for access to products from farther south. West of the Nile was the arid Sahara, broken by a chain of oases some 125 to 185 miles (200 to 300 km) from the river and lacking in all other resources except for a few minerals. The eastern desert, between the Nile and the Red Sea, was more important, for it supported a small nomadic population and desert game, contained numerous mineral deposits, including gold, and was the route to the Red Sea.
To the northeast was the Isthmus of Suez. It offered the principal route for contact with Sinai, from which came turquoise and possibly copper, and with southwestern Asia, Egypt’s most important area of cultural interaction, from which were received stimuli for technical development and cultivars for crops. Immigrants and ultimately invaders crossed the isthmus into Egypt, attracted by the country’s stability and prosperity. From the late 2nd millennium bce onward, numerous attacks were made by land and sea along the eastern Mediterranean coast.
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Pop Quiz: 18 Things to Know About Ancient Egypt
At first, relatively little cultural contact came by way of the Mediterranean Sea, but from an early date Egypt maintained trading relations with the Lebanese port of Byblos (present-day Jbail). Egypt needed few imports to maintain basic standards of living, but good timber was essential and not available within the country, so it usually was obtained from Lebanon. Minerals such as obsidian and lapis lazuli were imported from as far afield as Anatolia and Afghanistan.
Nov 1, 2015 · Evolution. Late summer in Egypt, around 2525 B.C., and the Nile is flooding. To a worker named Merrer, the deluge means it is time to bring stone to the site of Pharaoh Khufu's pyramid. The ...
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Oct 14, 2009 · Ancient Egypt was the preeminent civilization in the Mediterranean world for almost 30 centuries—from its unification around 3100 B.C. to its conquest by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C. From the ...
Mar 18, 2024 · Egyptian Society. The civilization of Ancient Egypt was one of the most fascinating and enduring in human history. It lasted for thousands of years, from the pre-dynastic period around 5000 BC until the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty in 30 BC, and during that time it developed a complex social structure that was unique in many ways.
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Nov 7, 2003 · Pyramids: Excavation and Preservation. November 7, 2003. 7 mins read. Zahi Hawass is Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Cairo, the most influential archaeological post in Egypt. Between 1987 and 2002 , he was the Director General of the Giza Pyramids, Saqqara, Heliopolis, and the Bahariya Oasis.
