... his highness king of the south and north, Ptolemy the fi—
Oh hey, didn’t see you there.
I was just doing some light reading.
Fun timing, actually, ‘cause after Napoleon stumbled onto this giant multilingual rock
while on campaign in 1799, the Egyptian hieroglyphs were first translated from the matching Greek
inscription exactly 200 years ago in 1822.
Our ability to read the language opened the floodgates to modern Egyptology, and an archaeological
discovery of that magnitude was only matched by Howard Carter finding the exquisitely-preserved
tomb of King Tut in 1922.
But beyond the surface-level aesthetics of fancy pictures, mummies, and giant D4’s
in the middle of the desert, what’s really the story of Ancient Egypt?
Well, in celebration of Egyptology’s double-centennials, Let’s Do Some History.
Now, before all this shiny modern scholarship, ancient observers had written plenty of accounts,
but despite the best attempts of Herodotus’ Histories and Manetho’s Aegyptiaca, these
were outside perspectives on Ancient Egypt.
Even the name comes from Greek, Aigyptos, whereas the original name is Kemet, referring
to the fertile black soil along the banks of the Nile.
As with the name, so too was all of ancient Egyptian society defined by this one water
source.
The Nile’s annual floods deposited new layers of silt on the surrounding land, which made
Egyptian farms the most abundant and consistent in the entire ancient near east.
Once grown, crops could easily travel by ship, and, whomstsoever had the biggest boat essentially
had instant control of the entire river and the ability to govern everyone within line
of sight of it: which was everyone.
With one easy source for water, food, trade, and power, that’s the core criteria for
civilization, so we’re in business.
Consequently, one quirk of Egyptian geography is that south, where the river started, is
up, while north, where the river branches into the delta and empties into the Mediterranean,
is down.
So Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt are charmingly reversed, plus, each one comes with a neat
crown.
Fine on their own, but better together, as demonstrated by Narmer, who unified the crowns
of upper and lower Egypt both figuratively and literally, the man smushed the crowns
together, becoming the first proper king of Egypt.
We know this from King Lists recorded later on, where he’s referred to as “Menes”,
which we used to think was a different person but he’s probably the same, and we also
have what’s called The Narmer Palette, an artistic depiction OF Narmer unifying Egypt.
It’s not quite clear where strict history ends and legend begins, but it vividly (and
kinda brutally) tells the story as Egyptians understood it, and just as cool is how right
out of the gate we have art in profile, the two crowns, hieroglyphic writing, and falcon-boy
Horus.
By the Third dynasty things get even more on-brand, as the pharaohs start building Pyramids.
Working from earlier styles of big stone masonry and possibly inspired by Mesopotamian architecture,
King Djoser built the first stepped pyramid in Egypt.
After further experiments, one of which collapsed in on itself, oops, the kings of the 4th dynasty
built the big fancy pyramids at Giza, which in their day would have been coated in white
limestone and capped in gold.
As a pure architectural achievement, the pyramids are spectacular, but the reality is that’s
a lot of work for a dead guy, so later dynasties shifted focus to building temples and other
more usable structures.
Ancient Egypt didn’t emerge fully formed, but it’s impressive what does appear at
the start of dynastic history, with the pleasantly terrifying implication that several core aspects
of Egyptian culture go back not just to the Old Kingdom, but even before Narmer.
I should specify, the term Old Kingdom (along with Middle and New Kingdom) are modern conventions
to distinguish periods of dynastic continuity and general stability with the Intermediate
Periods, where something or other goes wrong.
The First Intermediate Period began at the tail end of the sixth dynasty, where King
Pepi II was several decades into his reign and appeared to be going senile.
So in the absence of central authority, Nomarchs in charge of the provinces gobbled up power
for themselves and even established their own local dynasties.
Though they paid lip service to the king(s) in Heracleopolis and Thebes — as there were
competing dynasties in different cities — the next 130 years was a provincial free-for-all,
until King Mentuhotep II up in Thebes conquered Lower Egypt to reunite north and south, booted
out all the hereditary nomarchs and replaced them with new ones actually loyal to the king,
and thus kicked off the Middle Kingdom.
These next three centuries were pleasantly chill on the political front thanks to Mentuhotep’s
reforms, so the main development was cultural, as literature got more popular and accessible.
In the Old Kingdom, spells to be used by the Pharaoh in the afterlife were inscribed on
the walls and sarcophagi of Pyramids, while in the Intermediary period that expanded to
include Coffin Texts, so that high-ranking officials outside the royal circle could have
some assistance on their way into the afterlife.
By the latter Middle Kingdom, this slow democratization of the afterlife culminated in the Book of
the Dead, a personalized Dummies’ Guide To The Underworld filled with spells and stories,
to be buried alongside an individual.
This requires a fairly robust conception of the afterlife, otherwise we’re just casting
spells in the dark, so it’s likely this literature developed in response the growing
cult of Osiris, the God of the Dead.
Beyond looking metaphorically down, Egypt also began looking outwards to their neighbors,
as Senusret III conquered south along the Nile into Nubia, while building trade relations
with Mesopotamia.
This was great, until it slightly backfired, because when travelers, merchants, and migrants
from the Levant came to settle in Lower Egypt in the latter decades of the Middle Kingdom,
they realized that the 13th Dynasty’s authority wasn’t all that strong and didn’t extend
very far beyond the capital city of Itjtawy.
So in the absence of any meaningful resistance, some Canaanites declared a new dynasty, set
up a new capital at Avaris, and started ruling Lower Egypt.
Apparently it was that easy, because about a century later another Asiatic group called
the Hyksos did the exact same thing.
The pharaohs up in Thebes surely weren’t thrilled, but they couldn’t even handle
a local mini-dynasty at Abydos, so when the Hyksos eventually rolled into Thebes around
1580, they were powerless to stop it.
They almost had all of Egypt too, until a dynastic dispute back down in Avaris forced
them to regroup, which gave the new 17th Dynasty in Thebes time to rebuild and launch a counterattack.
The first two kings of the war died on campaign, but the third guy made it work, fully reuniting
Egypt under Theban authority and beginning the New Kingdom period.
His first order of business was stopping that whole mess from happening again, so he conquered
into the Levant to smack ‘em around a little and make sure they didn’t get ideas, as
well as reconquering into Nubia to open the gold mines back up.
Of course, there’s more ways to get cash than ripping it out of the ground or stealing
at spear-point, there’s the polite method of selling stuff, as enthusiastically practiced
by the Pharaoh-Queen Hatshepsut.
She wound up on the throne after promoting herself from regent, and is best known for
launching a trading expedition to the land of Punt at the base of the Red Sea, as well
as re-establishing trade routes with the Near East.
All that incoming wealth financed one of the biggest building programs in Egyptian history,
with Hatshepsut embellishing existing temples like the one at Karnak as well as making brand
new structures like her triple-colonnaded mortuary temple.
This was a more efficient alternative to single-use Pyramids because they were way the hell smaller
but also served as a site of public worship for the pharaoh after death while they themselves
took a nice long nap in the Valley of the Kings.
This didn’t stop the tombs from being robbed, but, well, neither did the pyramids, so why
waste the effort?
Back in the land of the living, Hatshepsut’s stepson Thutmose III went on campaign after
campaign after campaign to extend Egypt’s dominion from down in Nubia all the way up
to Syria.
The kingdom became so fabulously wealthy that a Babylonian king once told Amenhotep III
“In your country, gold is like dust”.
While the Pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty were having a grand old time, they weren’t the
only ones with resources and power.
See, after the expulsion of the Hyksos, the cult of the god Amun gained immense prestige
as thanks for his help liberating Egypt, and he fused with the primary sun god to become
Amun-Ra, the patron god of All Egypt.
With that kind of clout, the priesthood of Amun’s power rivaled only the Pharaoh.
There was one king who saw this process unfolding and tried to stop it, but he went just a smidge
overboard with it.
Amenhotep IV completely banned the worship of Amun-Ra, made a new capital away from Thebes
and the Temple of Amun at Karnak, and promoted a new cult worshipping the Sun Disk Aten with
whom only the Pharaoh could commune, thus granting the renamed Akhenaten sole power
(pun intended) over his newly diet-monotheistic state.
Unfortunately, his first and only act as autocrat was… kind of nothing?
So nobody was governing and the economy fell in the tank, and when the new pharaoh Tutankhamun
undid all that Aten nonsense and got things back on track, everybody was relieved, especially
the priesthood of Amun.
But before that ominous plotline comes to a head, there’s one more monarch on the
list who puts all the rest to shame, and that is Ramesses II.
Coming in strong with stable governance, renewed trade, plenty of building, and surprisingly
robust international relations, the man did a lot with his 7 decades in power.
He launched several campaigns into the Levant to consolidate his holdings and fend off the
Anatolian Hittite Empire, and while his military operations were moderately successful, his
military propaganda was outstanding.
Ramesses returned from the Battle of Kadesh proclaiming the greatest victory in Egyptian
history with monuments dedicated to his glory, but the actual battle was basically a draw,
and he didn’t even take the city of Kadesh.
He did, however, end up striking a formal peace treaty with the Hittites, which allowed
him to turn his focus inward and get to building.
Between a new capital in the Nile Delta, a gigantic mortuary temple in Thebes and a complex
way up the river in Nubia, Ramesses shelled out on monuments all along the Nile like nobody
could even dream, transforming the entire face of Egypt.
Lucky timing that he got to it when he did, because in half a century it all falls apart.
Yeahhhh, unfortunately for Ramesses III, the crises were frequent and numerous.
First were the invasions (or possibly just migrations) of various peoples from the northern
Mediterranean, whom he begrudgingly allowed to settle in Sinai and the Levant.
Meanwhile, overseas trade dried up because all the other civilizations of the late bronze
age were in the process of collapsing, and all that fighting left the treasury low on
funds, so the tomb-builders went on strike.
They did come back, but the fact that Ramesses’ main temple complex had defensive fortifications
was a very bad sign.
And, to cap it off, a conflict between potential heirs ended with Ramses getting assassinated,
by his great Wife!
Well, one of them, that was partly the issue.
After that, subsequent rulers were no match for persistent droughts, nor for the Priesthood
of Amun, who were now fully in charge of Upper Egypt from their base in Thebes and taking
on royal titles to fit their newfound stature.
There was still an actual pharaoh down in the Delta, but crazy coincidence, he was related
to the high priest!
So silly!
The breakdown of central authority in the Third Intermediate Period wasn’t that bad
of a time on its own, but it left Egypt wide open to foreign rule, as Libyans who settled
in the Delta in centuries prior wound up ruling for two and a half dynasties.
The kingdom intermittently came together before falling back apart, and this tempting opportunity
caught the eye of the Nubians from the Kingdom of Kush.
On paper, once again not great, because after King Kashta installed his daughter as chief
Priestess of Amun, his son King Piye conquered the whole of Egypt and established a new dynasty
of Kushite rulers.
Thing is, these guys had a long relationship with Egypt and actually really admired their
civilization, so although Egypt was ruled by foreigners, they governed well, built more
pyramids, and preserved the culture, amounting to probably the best century Egypt has had
since the New Kingdom.
Unfortunately, other conquerors were on the way, as when the Assyrian empire marched out
from Mesopotamia into the Nile Delta in the 660s BC to sack Memphis and Thebes before
installing a puppet dynasty and calling it a day.
The Kushites withdrew back to their homeland up the river, leaving Egypt to figure itself
out.
Despite some success in resisting Assyrian influence, Egypt would remain at the mercy
of forces far beyond their control.
Later that century, the Assyrians got conquered by the Babylonians, who became the threat
du jour, but then they got yoinked by the Achaemenid Persian empire, who then also conquered
Egypt and actually kept it this time.
Egypt was no stranger to rule by foreigners, but this was the first time that the Kingdom
of the Nile was merely a distant corner of a much larger empire.
Granted, this was the Persian empire, so they were actually cool with Egyptian culture,
but it’s the principle of the thing, you know?
So naturally Egyptians tried their hand at breaking free, and with help from Greek mercenaries
they snuck in a little half century of independence.
Persia did eventually come back, but they wouldn’t stay for long, because Alexander
The Macedonian Twink came on in to build an even bigger empire.
But he died.
Like, really fast.
So in 323 his general Ptolemy snagged a piece of the shattering Macedonian Empire, and became
the new Pharaoh of Egypt.
His Ptolemaic Dynasty had its share of ups and downs and catastrophic inbreeding, but
it honestly did pretty well for itself, as the coastal capital of Alexandria became the
pinnacle of Hellenistic culture.
Although the ruling class was almost exclusively Greek, they respected Egyptian culture, honored
their gods, and issued royal decrees in both languages, which is why we have documents
like the Rosetta Stone.
The golden glow of Ptolemaic Egypt reached as far as Rome, who admired the culture, yes,
but also realized that an agricultural powerhouse like the Nile would fit perfectly into their
growing empire.
So, even with a valiant last huzzah by Queen Cleopatra, Egypt became a province of Rome.
Despite this rather substantial political change, the biggest shock to Egyptian culture
came three centuries later, with the spread of Christianity.
Much more severe than the reforms of Akhenaten, Egyptian pagan temples were converted into
churches or abandoned outright, and the rise of Coptic as the main written language made
hieroglyphs obsolete.
More than two centuries before the Muslim Conquests in 641, the Egypt of the Pharaohs
was gone.
Conquered not by a man, but a God.
And with our three-and-a-half-thousand-year chronology completed, that’s a wrap on the
history of Ancient Egypt.
It’s astounding that even with dynasties’-worth of growth and change and turmoil, the core
of that culture held steady, and their civilization always came back stronger.
Still, despite the mountains of evidence we’ve found with modern archaeology, there’s a
fundamental mysteriousness to all that grandeur that somehow makes it even more fascinating,
as the more we learn the more we want to learn.
Ugh…
Stupid learning, being interesting.
I tell you, this whole thing is just one big pyramid scheme.
[Laughing] ohhh god.
Thank you so much for watching.
This video was Quite The Undertaking so I have to thank our OSP-Discord moderator and
supreme Egyptology enthusiast Billy!
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