Civilizations
Ancient Egypt
Also Known As Pharaonic Egypt
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Ancient Egypt was the civilization that flourished along the Nile River in northeastern Africa from around 3100 BCE, when Upper and Lower Egypt were unified under its first pharaohs, until its absorption into the Persian and later Greco Roman world in the first millennium BCE. Its history is conventionally divided into the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms, separated by intermediate periods of fragmentation, and produced monumental architecture including the pyramids of Giza, a complex religious system centered on divine kingship and the afterlife, and one of the longest continuous written records of any ancient society, preserved in hieroglyphic and later hieratic and demotic scripts. Ancient Egypt's wealth rested on the predictable annual flooding of the Nile, which made it one of the most agriculturally productive and politically stable regions of the ancient world for long stretches of its history.
Facts
RegionAlong the Nile River, northeastern Africa 1 End YearAncient Egypt as an independent state ends with the Roman annexation following the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BCE, a securely fixed date, though Egyptian culture and religion continued for centuries afterward under Roman rule. Disputed
Start YearThe unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under Narmer, or Menes in later tradition, is conventionally dated around 3100 BCE, but estimates in the scholarly literature range from roughly 3150 to 3000 BCE depending on the chronology used. Cross-Tradition Connections
In Era
Related To
New Kingdom Egypt was directly struck by the Late Bronze Age Collapse, repelling Sea Peoples invasions under Merneptah and Ramesses III while losing its Near Eastern territories and much of its former power in the process.
Ruled By
As the last active Ptolemaic ruler. The Ptolemaic Kingdom she ruled was a Greek dynasty over Egypt rather than a native Egyptian one, part of the broader civilization this entity represents.
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: Egypt, influenced this subject there.
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