Ancient Egypt is one of the most well known and was one of the most influential civilizations
in the ancient world, and also probably something I should be talking about, given my logo,
and… yeah.
Here’s the History of Egypt, up to the death of Cleopatra.
So, yeah, Egypt is, like, crazy old.
I mean, so old that there were some small species of mammoths in northern Russia during
the Old Kingdom, and I honest to god could never make the whole of the history of Egypt
in just one video.
So, what was the Old Kingdom?
Okay, we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves here, let’s start at the beginning.
From around 7000 BC, several cultures all across Egypt started settling on the Nile,
right during the dawn of agriculture, all across dank river valleys across the world.
The Nile was certainly a river, and it had a valley area that was certainly dank enough
for the fertile, black soil that gave the area its original name, kmt.
The Nile was central to all of Egypt, since it effectively functioned as a kind of superhighway
of the day, and cities even dug canals for further transport.
However, the annual flooding of the Nile, though it could fertilize crop lands if at
just the right amount of flooding, could also destroy towns and villages if it flooded too
much, which it often did.
This motivated many Egyptian kings to commission huge dam projects, including the dam built
around the capital, Memphis, by the pharaoh Menes, or Narmer…
Yeah, let’s alternate between the two to make it easier.
So, Menes was the king of Upper Egypt— which was actually situated in the south, but also
at a higher elevation, kind of like in Germany— and his claim to fame was the man who united
all of Egypt under one crown, or actually two crowns, but they just combined them into
one (#genius).
The first two dynasties were from an era called the archaic period, from 3100 to 2686 BC,
until the start of the third dynasty, which began the Old Kingdom.
The 26th century BC is when all the famous building projects in Giza went underway.
Pharaohs didn’t always bury themselves in pyramids, though around 80 were built over
the course of the Old Kingdom.
In the beginning, when a king died, it was barely more than, “hey, I’m dead now,
can you put some rocks on me”.
This was called a mastaba (if you want to be formal about it), and then the king Djoser
was buried in the famous Step Pyramid in Saqqara, basically getting an extra five mastabas.
This design was eventually changed into the pyramid design we all know today by not long
after.
In 2246 BC, 6-year old Pepi II was crowned king, and ruled for 94 years, and died at
age 100, said to have been the longest reign in history.
It was so long, in fact, that when he died, Egypt just… broke.
This period of time, from 2150-2040 BC was known as the First Intermediate Period.
But did you try turning it off and back on again?
Well, King Mentuhotep II must have tried something similar, because he reunited Egypt, and started
the Middle Kingdom, which lasted until 1640 BC, when the Hyksos people from the Middle
East overran the local leadership, and started the Second Intermediate Period, from 1640-1552
BC.
The New Kingdom started in 1552 BC, and the Egyptian empire effectively reached its territorial
height under King Tuthmosis III, in the 15th century BC, going way beyond the old core
of Egypt.
Just before Tuthmosis III, however, came King Hatshepsut, who was remarkable in ancient
Egyptian history for actually being a woman, who originally was Tuthmosis III’s co-ruler,
as he was just a kid when his father, Tuthmosis II died, and eventually she herself became
a full-fledged king.
In the 14th century BC came Akhenaten, who decided to update Egypt with an entirely new
format, which no one really liked all that much, and so the devs removed the new features
with a follow-up update, restoring the old order that people did like (take notes, YouTube).
From 1279 to 1224 BC, just after the time the story of Exodus was said to have taken
place, was the reign of King Ramesses II, also known as Ramesses the Great, and he was
pretty chill, I’ve heard.
He also expanded Egypt’s military campaigns, and built the famous temple at Abu Simbel,
way in the south, which had to be relocated after… actually, no, that’s in part 2,
I’m getting ahead of myself again.
What we truly think of as “ancient Egypt” technically ended with the end of the New
Kingdom, and start of the Third Intermediate Period, in 1085 BC.
From 664-332 BC was the Late Period, which was around the time the Persian Empire finally
conquered Egypt, effectively ending an independent Egypt, and Alexander the Great conquered said
Persian Empire, and by extension Egypt, and founded the city of Alexandria, as well as
Alexandria, Alexandria, Alexandria, and Alexandria.
From 323-30 BC was the rule of the last dynasty of Egypt, known as the Ptolemies, who ruled…
Ptolemaic Egypt.
Julius Caesar took great interest in Egypt, and… befriended Queen Cleopatra VII, and
took back to Rome many things he liked from Egypt, like calendars and censuses.
This was of course before 44 BC, when he realized those senators weren’t preparing a salad
for him.
This Greek dynasty of Egypt lasted up until the year 30 BC, when Egypt became part of
Rome, Cleopatra became dead, and this video became over.
See you in part 2.
Thanks for watching this video, and be sure to like, share, and come back for part 2!
I’ve been at VidCon this week, and, after receiving a lot more people asking if I was
Egyptian than in previous years, I decided I should probably have at least one Egyptian
history video on my channel.
Anyways, subscribe to learn something new every Sunday.