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ANCIENT EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION

For Semester I (Under CBCS)

Lecture I

Egyptian Civilization and the River Nile: An Introduction

The ancient Egyptian Civilization thrived on the River Nile. The Nile River basin constituted

the cradle for the evolution as well as the decline of the advanced ancient Egyptian

Civilization. Roughly 2000 years prior to the beginning of the dynastic period of the ancient

Egyptian Civilization around 3100 BCE, there were many settlements that had already

developed along the River Nile. These settlements were inhabited primarily by nomads and

pastoralists who cultivated crops like barley on the floodplain of the Nile as well as practised

fishing and hunting.

The ancient Egyptian civilization developed in northeastern Africa in the 3rd millennium

BCE. The term Ancient Egypt traditionally refers to northeastern Africa from its prehistory up

to the Islamic conquest in the 7th century CE. Archaeological findings over a long period of

time have brought to the fore the achievements of the ancient Egyptians in the realm of art

and architecture – the magnificent monuments erected by the ancient Egyptians bear

testimony to their artistry.

Ancient Egypt was like an oasis in the desert of northeastern Africa, which depended on the

annual inundation (flooding) of the Nile River to support its population whose primary

occupation was agriculture. The fertile floodplain of the Nile Valley was the primary source

of Egypt’s wealth and prosperity. The Nile was also Egypt’s sole channel of transportation.

Archaeological sources provide us with the information that around 5000 BCE simple

farming based on cereal cultivation and cattle herding extending as far as Sudan (the

southernmost border of Egypt) had begun leading to the commencement of the pre-Dynastic

period of ancient Egyptian history. By 3000 BCE, small kingdoms and villages were

transformed into a unified state with a clearly defined and distinctive, common ideology.

From the earliest times when farming practices had begun, ancient Egypt was divided into

two broad regions – Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. Upper Egypt consisted of the region

south of the Nile delta. The Nile River flowed towards the north from these highlands of

Upper Egypt. The northern lowlands made up Lower Egypt where the Nile ended in a fan-

shaped delta and emptied into the Mediterranean Sea. The process of unification brought

these two regions under a single government. Upland people tended to be fierce and rugged,

like the terrain of Upper Egypt. Lowland northerners were generally prosperous farmers.

Papyrus and its use in ancient Egypt

Grass like aquatic plants known as papyrus grew along the banks of the River Nile. The

fibres from the stem of this versatile plant were used to make cloth for sails and clothing in

ancient times. Tied together, the papyrus reeds could be used to make boats or rope. The most

historically important use of papyrus was undoubtedly its use as a writing surface. To prepare

this surface for writing, the stems of the plant were crushed, then the layers obtained were

dampened, and finally hammered and dried. Around 3000 BCE, papyrus along with clay

tablets were used as writing surfaces by the ancient Egyptians. Many documents written on

papyrus (the root of the English word paper) still exist today.

Painting on Papyrus

Sources of Ancient Egyptian Civilization:

• The most valuable document for reconstructing the history of ancient Egypt is the

Palermo Stone. The stone which is currently housed in the Palermo Museum (in

Palermo, Italy) is the largest of five fragments of the stone which are all that survives

of a huge slab black diorite inscribed with royal annals. Where the Palermo Stone was

originally found is not known, hence the missing parts could not be searched for. The

annals inscribed as early as the fifth dynasty not only give the names, regnal years and

main activities of the Pharaohs of the five dynasties, but even help trace the history of

ancient Egypt prior to the Unification of Egypt at a time when kings ruled over Upper

and Lower Egypt separately. A fragment of the Palermo stone is there at The

Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt.

‘Contains list of names of the different kings who ruled Upper and Lower Egypt,

dating back to the First Dynasty until the middle of the Fifth Dynasty, together with

important events that took place during that period.

It also includes the yearly measurements of the Nile’s height.

This stone has added a few records to our historical knowledge of that period.’

(This information about the Palermo Stone fragment and the image inserted above

have been taken from the Egyptian Museum at Cairo, Egypt, February, 2019)

• Two lists of kings – the Abydos Table and the Karnak Table are inscribed on temple

walls in New Kingdom times that go back to the time of Menes. One such list from

Lower Egypt, the Table of Sakkara, has been derived from an inscription in the tomb

of a royal official dating from about 1250 BCE.

• Papyrus documents have provided a lot of information about ancient Egypt. The

Turin Papyrus is a temple document in hieratic script,1 which is said to have been

taken from a tomb in almost perfect condition. This document provides lists of

dynasties of gods, as well as of every king from Menes through to the nineteenth

dynasty, when it was compiled. The Papyrus gives the length of each reign in years,

month and days, and (unlike the Tables) groups them into dynasties.

• Manetho’s Aegyptiaca (now lost), provides the most important list of kings in a

chronological order that has aided historians in their historical research on ancient

Egypt considerably. Manetho was a priest who lived in the early 3rd century BCE. He

divided Egyptian history, after unification in 3100 BCE, into dynasties, 30 of which

are recognized. The Aegyptiaca was compiled from the Pharaonic records. This work

burnt with the library of Alexandria. Only fragments of the work is now available

which fortunately include the king list, made by later historians. Manetho’s Greek

versions of proper names have been widely adopted in Egyptology and his thirty-one

dynasties as well.

• The Narmer Palette, the ceremonial vessel, is another important source of ancient

Egyptian history primarily with regard to the information that the Palette provides

about Narmer, the Egyptian Pharaoh who is said to have conquered Lower Egypt.

Narmer is considered to be one of the last pre-dynastic rulers associated with the

unification of Upper and Lower Egypt. Narmer is depicted on the Palette wearing the

war Crown of Upper Egypt and the red wicker crown of Lower Egypt. This Palette,

also called Narmer’s Victory Palette was discovered in Hierakonpolis. It was possibly

designed for ceremonial use. The Palette is made of schist. The Palette is in the

Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.

1 Hieratic script, ancient Egyptian cursive writing, used from the 1st dynasty (c. 2925–c. 2775 BC) until about

200 BC. Derived from the earlier, pictorial hieroglyphic writing used in carved or painted inscriptions, hieratic

script was generally written in ink with a reed pen on papyrus; its cursive form was more suited to such a

medium than were the formal hieroglyphs. It was originally written vertically and later horizontally from right to

left. After about 660 BC demotic script replaced hieratic in most secular writings, but hieratic continued to be

used by priests in the transcription of religious texts for several more centuries.

The Narmer Palette

• The Rosetta Stone is a portion of a large black basalt stone Stela that measures three

feet, nine inches by two feet and a half inch. This portion of the Stela consists of

inscriptions in hieroglyphs (14 lines), demotic script (32 lines) and Greek (54 lines).

The stone was possibly inscribed by the priests of Memphis during the reign of

Ptolemy V Epiphanes giving information about the accession and patronage of the

latter.

The Rosetta Stone

In addition to these principal sources, there is of course a plethora of inscriptions, and other

archaeological sources.

Periodization of Ancient Egyptian Civilization:

Egyptologists conventionally divide ancient Egyptian civilization into four broad periods:

• Archaic Egypt and The Old Kingdom

• The Middle Kingdom

• The New Kingdom

• The Late period

The first three were separated by two intermediate periods that were intervals of political

change and instability.

Period of Ancient

Egypt

Dynasty Name of the Ruler Reigning Period

Pre-dynastic Period

(ca. 4000-2960 BC)

Dynasty 0 Narmer ca. 2960 BC

Archaic Period

(Dynasties 1-2)

(ca. 2960-2649 BC)

Dynasty 1 ca. 2960-2770 BC

Aha/Menes ca. 2960-2926 BC

Den/Dewen ca. 2873-2859 BC

Dynasty 2 ca. 2750-2649 BC

Hetepsekhemui ca. 2750 BC

Khasekhem(ui) ca. 2676-2649 BC

Old Kingdom

(ca. 2649-2134 BC)

Dynasty 3 ca. 2649-2575 BC

Netjerikhet Djoser ca. 2649-2630 BC

Huni ca. 2599-2575 BC

Dynasty 4 ca. 2575-2465 BC

Sneferu

ca. 2575-2551 BC

Khufu ca. 2551-2528 BC

Khafre ca. 2520-2494 BC

Menkaure ca. 2490-2472 BC

Dynasty 5 ca. 2465-2323 BC

Userkaf ca. 2465-2458 BC

Sahure ca. 2458-2446 BC

Unas ca. 2353-2323 BC

Dynasty 6 ca. 2323-2150 BC

Teti ca. 2323-2291 BC

Userkare ca. 2291-2289 BC

Pepi I Meryre ca. 2289-2255 BC

Pepi II Neferkare ca. 2246-2152 BC

Dynasty 7, 8 ca. 2143-2134 BC

(The Egyptian Museum at Cairo, Egypt, February, 2019)

References:

1. Margaret Bunson, Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt (Revised Edition) (2002)

2. Brian M. Fagan, People of the Earth: An Introduction to World Prehistory (2007)

3. Jacquetta Hawkes, The First Civilizations: Life in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and

Egypt (1973)

4. Kathleen Kuiper, Ancient Egypt: From Prehistory to the Islamic Conquest (The

Britannica Guide to Ancient Civilizations) (2011)

5. Bill Manley, The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Egypt (1996)

6. B.G. Trigger, B.J. Kemp, D. O’Connor and A.B. Lloyd, Ancient Egypt: A Social

History (1983)

Saptadeepa Banerjee

Assistant Professor

Department of History

Gurudas College