History UsefulNotes / AncientEgyptianHistory

AncientEgypt was the second civilization in the world (after ancient [[UsefulNotes/{{Iraq}} Mesopotamia]]) to invent writing, with bits of proto-hieroglyphs being dated to the ''33rd century BC''. As a result, its history is ''[[TimeAbyss extremely]]'' long. People tend to forget this: Egyptian history from the earliest extensive records in the 31st century BC to the Macedonian Conquest in 332 BC spans ''2700 years''. To put thing into perspective: For UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} or [[UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar Julius Caesar]], the first Egyptian kings were ''1000 years more ancient'' than either of them is to us; to the builders of the Pantheon in Rome, the Great Pyramid was older than the Pantheon is to the designers of today's skyscrapers. Even the Ancient Egyptian "golden age" of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties was as far removed from them as [[TheLowMiddleAges the Early Middle Ages]] are to us--the world of UsefulNotes/RamsesII was as far back for UsefulNotes/{{Augustus}} as UsefulNotes/{{Charlemagne}} is to UsefulNotes/BarackObama. Almost any trope recorded in Ancient Egypt is therefore by definition OlderThanDirt.

AncientEgypt was the second civilization in the world (after ancient [[UsefulNotes/{{Iraq}} Mesopotamia]]) to invent writing, with bits of proto-hieroglyphs being dated to the ''33rd century BC''. As a result, its history is ''[[TimeAbyss extremely]]'' long. People tend to forget this: Egyptian history from the earliest extensive records in the 31st century BC to the Macedonian Conquest in 332 BC spans ''2700 years''. Consider this: to UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} or [[UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar Julius Caesar]], the first Egyptian kings were ''1000 years more ancient'' than either of them is to us; to the builders of the Pantheon in Rome, the Great Pyramid was older than the Pantheon is to the designers of today's skyscrapers. Even the Ancient Egyptian "golden age" of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties was as far removed from them as [[TheLowMiddleAges the Early Middle Ages]] are to us--the world of UsefulNotes/RamsesII was as far back for UsefulNotes/{{Augustus}} as UsefulNotes/{{Charlemagne}} is to UsefulNotes/BarackObama. Almost any trope recorded in Ancient Egypt is therefore by definition OlderThanDirt.

On the other hand, personal names tend to be modern guesses at the actual Egyptian--a somewhat problematic endeavor, as Egyptian writing leaves out even more vowels than modern Arabic and Hebrew--although some Greek names persist (e.g. Cheops for Khufu) [[note]]This type of writing - consonants but no vowels - is what is called an abjad, or alternately a consonantary, as opposed to an alphabet. These systems work well for languages of the Afroasiatic family, which build words from consonantal roots of about 2-4 consonants, in which the vowels mainly serve to mark parts of speech or shades of meaning. Egyptian is the first Afroasiatic language to have been written; it was later followed by the Semitic languages (by far the largest subgroup of Afrosiatic tongues), which adopted the abjad paradigm particularly thoroughly (aided by the fact that their consonantal roots are almost invariably exactly 3 consonants). The ancient Egyptian scripts are particularly weird in that they are "logoconsonantaries"--they combine an abjad with logograms (glyphs representing words), and do so in a very strange fashion (by both having glyphs that represent ideas and glyphs that represent strings of syllables--e.g. the symbol ''pr'' could be used for the word "per", house, or for any instance of "p" and "r" appearing one after the other as consonants in a word).[[/note]].

It's possible (which isn't to say likely) that Akhenaten would have resolved these issues had he lived longer. But as it was, he died after 17-18 years on the throne. His successors did try to keep control of events, but the limited records we have suggest this was not easy.[[note]]The records are limited because someone later in history tried to [[UnPerson expunge Akhenaten and his regime]] from the historical records. While historians used to think this was someone who followed him more or less immediately, more recent research suggests that it's more likely the ''damnatio memoriae'' happened sometime in the late Nineteenth or early Twentieth Dynasty, a full century or two later.[[/note]] What records exist suggest his his widow Nefertiti ruled a few years from Akhetaten under the name of Neferneferuaten trying to reach a compromise with the old Amun priesthood while maintaining the Aten cult, but died before this could become established state policy. She would at some point be succeeded by the boy-king UsefulNotes/{{Tutankhamun}}, whose ministers Ay and Horemheb are probably responsible for abandoning both Aten and Akhetaten and moving the court to Memphis, the better to get a handle on the priesthood and on Canaan, respectively.\\

The legacy of Ancient Egypt in the modern country is mixed. On the one hand there's no doubting that Egypt is now part of a wider Islamic and Arabic-speaking culture--and is indeed the heart of the Arab World. On the other, certain aspects of life in Egypt--particularly aspects of music, cuisine, and certain holidays and folkways--still bear echos of the time of the pharaohs. An old joke in the Arab World is that "he who rules in [[UsefulNotes/{{Syria}} Damascus]] is always a governor, and he who rules in Cairo is always a pharaoh." On an economic front, there has also been both continuity and change. On the one hand, until the completion of the Aswan Dam in the 20th century, the rhythm of the agricultural year was unchanged since the time of the men who built those pyramids on the Giza Plateau so many millennia ago. On the other hand, since then, the rhythm has been lost, as has the old crop profile--Egyptian farmers now mostly raise rice (and [[TrademarkFavoriteFood tomatoes]]) for domestic food needs and sugarcane and fruit for export to Europe, instead of raising wheat and barley as staples and grapes for the pharaoh's wine cellar. On the other other hand, Egyptians both ancient and modern are known to have favored alliums--particularly onions, but also garlic. And while one of modern Egypt's three major candidates for national dish--koshary, a lentil-and-rice affair topped with a vinegar-tomato-garlic sauce, chickpeas, pasta, and fried onions--would be largely alien to the ancients (though probably much appreciated)--the other two would either be completely familiar (''foul mudammes'', slow-cooked fava beans with onions, garlic, and cumin, usually eaten with bread) or nearly so (''molokheyya'', a stew of finely chopped jute leaves and meat with vinegar and garlic, made somewhat different by the modern addition of tomato sauce and usual presentation over rice[[note]]And by the usual use of chicken as the meat, as chicken didn't arrive in Egypt until the Late Period at the earliest. That said, the most traditional meat--when it's available--is rabbit, which the ancients did have.[[/note]]).

The legacy of Ancient Egypt in the modern country is mixed. On the one hand there's no doubting that Egypt is now part of a wider Islamic and Arabic-speaking culture--and is indeed the heart of the Arab World. On the other, certain aspects of life in Egypt--particularly aspects of music, cuisine, and certain holidays and folkways--still bear echos of the time of the pharaohs. An old joke in the Arab World is that "he who rules in [[UsefulNotes/{{Syria}} Damascus]] is always a governor, and he who rules in Cairo is always a pharaoh." On an economic front, there has also been both continuity and change. On the one hand, until the completion of the Aswan Dam in the 20th century, the rhythm of the agricultural year was unchanged since the time of the men who built those pyramids on the Giza Plateau so many millennia ago. On the other hand, since then, the rhythm has been lost, as has the old crop profile--Egyptian farmers now mostly raise rice (and [[TrademarkFavoriteFood tomatoes]]) for domestic food needs and sugarcane and fruit for export to Europe, instead of raising wheat and barley as staples and grapes for the pharaoh's wine cellar. On the other other hand, Egyptians both ancient and modern are known to have favored alliums--particularly onions, but also garlic.

On the other hand, personal names tend to be modern guesses at the actual Egyptian--a somewhat problematic endeavor, as Egyptian writing leaves out even more vowels than modern Arabic and Hebrew--although some Greek names persist (e.g. Cheops for Khufu) [[note]]This type of writing - consonants but no vowels - is what is called an abjad, or alternately a consonantary, as opposed to an alphabet. The ancient Egyptian scripts are particularly weird in that they are "logoconsonantaries"--they combine an abjad with logograms (glyphs representing words), and do so in a very strange fashion (by both having glyphs that represent ideas and glyphs that represent strings of syllables--e.g. the symbol ''pr'' could be used for the word "per", house, or for any instance of "p" and "r" appearing one after the other as consonants in a word).[[/note]].

This expansionist phase culminated in the long and overlapping reigns of [[SheIsTheKing Hatshepsut]] and her nephew Thutmose III. Hatshepsut wasn't much of a conqueror herself, but she consolidated her ancestors' empire, built up the economic base, and forged trading and diplomatic links with Egypt's neighbors (most famously Punt). Oh, and she built a bunch of pretty monuments; her mortuary temple is one of the most beautiful and iconic works of ancient Egyptian architecture, and she contributed other, smaller works to the ancient Egyptian architectural treasury. Her efforts to legitimate her reign also had lasting effects; in particular, the story she cooked up about ''actually'' being the child of Amun [[BedTrick in disguise as her official father Thutmose I]] later became standard royal propaganda. Meanwhile, her patriarchal bureaucrats and courtiers seem to have started to use the word "Pharaoh" (which had previously meant "the Palace") to refer to the monarch to assuage their discomfort at taking orders from a woman.\\

The first pyramid was built for the founder of the Third Dynasty, King Netjerikhet Djoser. This was not a "true" pyramid, but a step pyramid in seven layers, but it still represents a masterful feat of ancient engineering--and by one of history's first identified engineers, no less, the King's vizier Imhotep. ([[Film/TheMummy No he is not going to try to kill you]]--[[RenaissanceMan he is also one of history's first identified doctors]], at least according to tradition). Later Third Dynasty monarchs built a variety of tombs--including some step pyramids (the last king, Huni, appears to have built several small pyramids, though not as tombs).\\

This extends to the name of Egypt itself, which derives from the Greek ''Aigyptos'' (via the Latin ''Aegyptus''). ''Aigyptos'' in turn appears to derive from the Greeks' best attempt to render "''Hwt-ka-Ptah''" ("Home of the Soul of Ptah"), a New Kingdom-era name for Memphis (originally applied to the city metonymically from the great temple to Ptah it housed); Memphis (which throughout Egyptian history was usually the largest and richest city of Lower Egypt, if not all Egypt, and the administrative center of everything from the Faiyum to the coast) appears to have been the main destination of the Mycenaean-era Greeks who traveled to Egypt for trade and diplomatic missions. To the Egyptians, their country was most usually called "Kemet", i.e. "the Black [Land]", referring to the black silt that made it so fertile, in contrast to "Deshret", i.e. "the Red [Land]", i.e. the desert all around the Nile Valley.[[note]]Confusingly, "Deshret" also refers to the [[CoolCrown Red Crown of Lower Egypt]]; while the crown was red, the land most assuredly was not. The confusion can be clarified inasmuch as "Deshret" means "the Red One"; whether one was speaking of the crown or the region would be clear from context.[[/note]] In certain contexts, however, Egypt was also called "Tawy", "the Two Lands",[[note]]"Ta" being Egyptian for "land", "-wy" being the Egyptian suffix for [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_(grammatical_number) dual number]] in this context.[[/note]]. referring to the political union of Upper and Lower Egypt.

Seqenenre now attacked the northern kingdom, seeking to reunite the Two Lands under his banner--and failed. He appears to have run a brilliant campaign, using combined-arms operations on the Nile to devastating effect, but was defeated in a key battle. He was then captured and brutally executed, hands tied behind his back, by an axe-blow to his temple. The northerners also [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill pierced his skull with a spear, beat his body with maces and clubs, and stabbed him repeatedly with daggers or small swords]]. His body, apparently still tied up, was then sent upriver to his family in Thebes for mummification and burial.[[note]]We don't have any direct written evidence of this, as the ancient Egyptians didn't like talking/writing about how anyone died. However, we ''do'' have Seqenenre Tao's mummy, and it shows distinctive signs of this kind of execution-style death.[[/note]]\\

One final note. It's important to note too that there isn't a monolithic, unchanging "Ancient Egypt" and a clear demarcation where it becomes "Modern Egypt". Egypt, throughout its history, from the early Bronze Age to the 21st century, went through several changes, invasions, golden ages, migrations, etc... It's easy to see the Arabs as "invaders" who "ended" the "real" Egypt, but the Romans, the Greeks (Macedonians), the Persians (Achaemenids), the Nubians, the Assyrians, the [[PrecursorKillers Sea Peoples]], the Lybians, etc... were also invaders who left their marks on Egypt. The Arabs did manage to change the language of the people (something none of the others did), but otherwise their impact is of a piece with the others.[[note]]If anything, the Romans and Greeks had a bigger impact by killing off the ancient Egyptian religion and replacing it with Christianity--the Roman emperors only stopped using the pharaonic titulary in Egypt after the conversion to Christianity. The death of the Egyptian religion led directly to the loss of living knowledge of hieroglyphics, as those were only maintained to honor the old gods. Meanwhile, the ascent of Christianity led to the replacement of the hieratic and demotic scripts with the Greek-based Coptic alphabet, almost completely cutting off Egyptians from their pre-Christian written heritage.[[/note]] The Egypt of Cleopatra might seem ancient and "different" from 21st century Egypt, but to her contemporaries the Egypt of the Pyramid builders would be just as ancient and "different". Like any other society Egypt, both ancient and modern, changed and adapted and will continue to do so.

On the other hand, personal names tend to be modern guesses at the actual Egyptian--a somewhat problematic endeavor, as Egyptian writing leaves out even more vowels than modern Arabic and Hebrew--although some Greek names persist (e.g. Cheops for Khufu) [[note]]This type of writing - consonants but no vowels - is what is called an abjad, as opposed to an alphabet[[/note]].

One final note. It's important to note too that there isn't a monolithic, unchanging "Ancient Egypt" and a clear demarcation where it becomes "Modern Egypt". Egypt, throughout its history, from the early Bronze Age to the 21st century, went through several changes, invasions, golden ages, migrations, etc... It's easy to see the Arabs as "invaders" who "ended" the "real" Egypt, but the Romans, the Greeks (Macedonians), the Persians (Achaemenids), the Nubians, the Assyrians, the [[PrecursorKillers Sea Peoples]], the Lybians, etc... were also invaders who left their marks on Egypt. The Arabs did manage to change the language of the people (something none of the others did), but otherwise their impact is of a piece with the others.[[note]]If anything, the Romans and Greeks had a bigger impact by killing off the ancient Egyptian religion and replacing it with Christianity--the Roman emperors only stopped using the pharaonic titulary in Egypt after the conversion to Christianity. The death of the Egyptian religion led directly to the loss of living knowledge of hieroglyphics, as those were only maintained to honor the old gods. Meanwhile, the ascent of Christianity led to the replacement of the hieratic and demotic scripts with the Greek-based Coptic alphabet, almost completely cutting off Egyptians from their written heritage.[[/note]] The Egypt of Cleopatra might seem ancient and "different" from 21st century Egypt, but to her contemporaries the Egypt of the Pyramid builders would be just as ancient and "different". Like any other society Egypt, both ancient and modern, changed and adapted and will continue to do so.

One final note. It's important to note too that there isn't a monolithic, unchanging "Ancient Egypt" and a clear demarcation where it becomes "Modern Egypt". Egypt, throughout its history, from the early Bronze Age to the 21st century, went through several changes, invasions, golden ages, migrations, etc... It's easy to see the Arabs as "invaders" who "ended" the "real" Egypt, but the Romans, the Greeks (Macedonians), the Persians (Achaemenids), the Nubians, the Assyrians, the [[PrecursorKillers Sea Peoples]], the Lybians, etc... were also invaders who left their marks on Egypt. The Arabs did manage to change the language of the people (something none of the others did), but otherwise their impact is of a piece with the others.[[note]]If anything, the Romans and Greeks had a bigger impact by killing off the ancient Egyptian religion and replacing it with Christianity--the Roman emperors only stopped using the pharaonic titulary in Egypt after the conversion to Christianity. The death of the Egyptian religion led directly to the loss of living knowledge of hieroglyphics, as those were only maintained to honor the old gods.[[/note]] The Egypt of Cleopatra might seem ancient and "different" from 21st century Egypt, but to her contemporaries the Egypt of the Pyramid builders would be just as ancient and "different". Like any other society Egypt, both ancient and modern, changed and adapted and will continue to do so.

One final note. It's important to note too that there isn't a monolithic, unchanging "Ancient Egypt" and a clear demarcation where it becomes "Modern Egypt". Egypt, throughout its history, from the early Bronze Age to the 21st century, went through several changes, invasions, golden ages, migrations, etc... It's easy to see the Arabs as "invaders" who "ended" the "real" Egypt, but the Romans, the Greeks (Macedonians), the Persians (Achaemenids), the Nubians, the Assyrians, the [[PrecursorKillers Sea Peoples]], the Lybians, etc... were also invaders who left their marks on Egypt. The Arabs did manage to change the language of the people (something none of the others did), but otherwise their impact is of a piece with the others. (If anything, the Romans and Greeks had a bigger impact by killing off the ancient Egyptian religion and replacing it with Christianity--the Roman emperors only stopped using the pharaonic titulary in Egypt after the conversion to Christianity.) The Egypt of Cleopatra might seem ancient and "different" from 21st century Egypt, but to her contemporaries the Egypt of the Pyramid builders would be just as ancient and "different". Like any other society Egypt, both ancient and modern, changed and adapted and will continue to do so.

One final note. It's important to note too that there isn't a monolithic, unchanging "Ancient Egypt" and a clear demarcation where it becomes "Modern Egypt". Egypt, throughout its history, from the early Bronze Age to the 21st century, went through several changes, invasions, golden ages, migrations, etc... It's easy to see the Arabs as "invaders" who "ended" the "real" Egypt, but the Romans, the Greeks (Macedonians), the Persians (Achaemenids), the Nubians, the Assyrians, the [[PrecursorKillers Sea Peoples]], the Lybians, etc... were also invaders who left their marks on Egypt. The Arabs did manage to change the language of the people (something none of the others did), but otherwise their impact is of a piece with the others. (If anything, the Romans and Greeks had a bigger impact by killing off the ancient Egyptian religion and replacing it with Christianity--the Roman emperors stopped using pharaonic titles in Egypt only after the conversion to Christianity.) The Egypt of Cleopatra might seem ancient and "different" from 21st century Egypt, but to her contemporaries the Egypt of the Pyramid builders would be just as ancient and "different". Like any other society Egypt, both ancient and modern, changed and adapted and will continue to do so.

One final note. It's important to note too that there isn't a monolithic, unchanging "Ancient Egypt" and a clear demarcation where it becomes "Modern Egypt". Egypt, throughout its history, from the early Bronze Age to the 21st century, went through several changes, invasions, golden ages, migrations, etc... It's easy to see the Arabs as "invaders" who "ended" the "real" Egypt, but the Romans, the Greeks (Macedonians), the Persians (Achaemenids), the Nubians, the Assyrians, the [[PrecursorKillers Sea Peoples]], the Lybians, etc... were also invaders who left their marks on Egypt. The Arabs did manage to change the language of the people (something none of the others did), but otherwise their impact is of a piece with the others. (If anything, the Romans and Greeks had a bigger impact by killing off the ancient Egyptian religion and replacing it with Christianity.) The Egypt of Cleopatra might seem ancient and "different" from 21st century Egypt, but to her contemporaries the Egypt of the Pyramid builders would be just as ancient and "different". Like any other society Egypt, both ancient and modern, changed and adapted and will continue to do so.

One final note. It's important to note too that there isn't a monolithic, unchanging "Ancient Egypt" and a clear demarcation where it becomes "Modern Egypt". Egypt, throughout its history, from the early Bronze Age to the 21st century, went through several changes, invasions, golden ages, migrations, etc... It's easy to see the Arabs as "invaders" who "ended" the "real" Egypt, but the Romans, the Greeks (Macedonians), the Persians (Achaemenids), the Nubians, the Assyrians, the [[PrecursorKillers Sea Peoples]], the Lybians, etc... were also invaders who left their marks on Egypt. The Egypt of Cleopatra might seem ancient and "different" from 21st century Egypt, but to her contemporaries the Egypt of the Pyramid builders would be just as ancient and "different". Like any other society Egypt, both ancient and modern, changed and adapted and will continue to do so.

The legacy of Ancient Egypt in the modern country is mixed. On the one hand there's no doubting that Egypt is now part of a wider Islamic and Arabic-speaking culture--and is indeed the heart of the Arab World. On the other, certain aspects of life in Egypt--particularly aspects of music, cuisine, and certain holidays and folkways--still bear echos of the time of the pharaohs. An old joke in the Arab World is that "he who rules in [[UsefulNotes/{{Syria}} Damascus]] is always a governor, and he who rules in Cairo is always a pharaoh." On an economic front, there has also been both continuity and change. On the one hand, until the completion of the Aswan Dam in the 20th century, the rhythm of the agricultural year was unchanged since the time of the men who built those pyramids on the Giza Plateau so many millennia ago. On the other hand, since then, the rhythm has been lost, as has the old crop profile--Egyptian farmers now mostly raise rice (and [[TrademarkFavoriteFood tomatoes]]) for domestic food needs and sugarcane and fruit for export to Europe, instead of raising wheat and barley as staples and grapes for the pharaoh's wine cellar. On the other other hand, Egyptians both ancient and modern are known to have favored alliums--particularly onions, but also garlic.

On the other hand, personal names tend to be modern guesses at the actual Egyptian--a somewhat problematic endeavor, as Egyptian writing leaves out even more vowels than modern Arabic and Hebrew--although some Greek names persist (e.g. Cheops for Khufu).

Also, for most of this period, the palace housing the RoyalHarem was at the palace of Merwer[[note]]We should note that the Egyptian royal harem was a place of seclusion, yes, but not ''forced'' seclusion. The Egyptian royal ladies did most commonly live in the harem palace and spend most of their time there, as did most of the royal children, but the more senior royal wives had extensive public duties that frequently took them to Memphis, Thebes, or elsewhere (one of Thutmose IV's wives went to Sinai, for example). Certain royal ladies were also expected to take roles as priestesses, whose duties were likewise public. Moreover, even those royal ladies who did stay at the harem palace were intimately integrated into the social and economic life of the area around them; indeed, one of the main functions of the harem palace was the production of a particular kind of fine linen cloth, handmade by the women of the royal household (including queens and princesses) which was both provided to temples to clothe the images of the gods and put on the market for sale to noble families with goods the royal family wanted/needed. The palace was thus more a country retreat for the Egyptian royals, a place they could let go of public duties and focus on the more pedestrian tasks of being big landowners and on family life. So Merwer was less like the Seraglio and more like [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishRoyalFamily Sandringham House]].[[/note]] in the Faiyum, which is 5-6 times closer to Memphis than Thebes.[[note]]Something of note: Thebes was pretty much always the largest city in Upper Egypt, but Lower Egypt was usually more heavily populated and economically productive, and its cities were usually larger--unless it was recovering from an invasion or plague, to which it was more susceptible than the south. (Being closer to the Mediterranean trade routes was great for the economy, but bad for security and public health.) This even holds true today; modern Luxor (literally built atop the ancient Thebes) remains the largest city in Upper Egypt by a solid margin, but it's only the sixth-largest urban area in the country. The top 5 metros are all in Lower Egypt--chief among them being Cairo, whose urban area encompasses ancient Memphis and which is built pretty much on top of Memphis's ancient twin city Iunu/Heliopolis.[[/note]] This last bit meant that while Thebes was "capital", home to the largest palace, and center of the cult of the chief state god Amun, pharaohs were likely to have been born in or near Memphis and view that as their home.\\

This extends to the name of Egypt itself, which derives from the Greek ''Aigyptos'' (via the Latin ''Aegyptus''). ''Aigyptos'' in turn appears to derive from the Greeks' best attempt to render "''Hwt-ka-Ptah''" ("Home of the Soul of Ptah"), a New Kingdom-era name for Memphis (originally applied to the city metonymically from the great temple to Ptah it housed); Memphis (which throughout Egyptian history was usually the largest and richest city of Lower Egypt, if not all Egypt, and the administrative center of everything from the Faiyum to the coast) appears to have been the main destination of the Mycenaean-era Greeks who traveled to Egypt for trade and diplomatic missions. To the Egyptians, their country was most usually called "Kemet", i.e. "the Black [Land]", referring to the black silt that made it so fertile, in contrast to "Deshret", i.e. "the Red [Land]", i.e. the desert all around the Nile Valley. In certain contexts, however, Egypt was also called "Tawy", "the Two Lands",[[note]]"Ta" being Egyptian for "land", "-wy" being the Egyptian suffix for [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_(grammatical_number) dual number]] in this context.[[/note]]. referring to the political union of Upper and Lower Egypt.

This extends to the name of Egypt itself, which derives from the Greek ''Aigyptos'' (via the Latin ''Aegyptus''). ''Aigyptos'' in turn appears to derive from the Greeks' best attempt to render "''Hwt-ka-Ptah''" ("Home of the Soul of Ptah"), a New Kingdom-era name for Memphis (originally applied to the city metonymically from the great temple to Ptah it housed); Memphis (which throughout Egyptian history was usually the largest and richest city of Lower Egypt, if not all Egypt, and the administrative center of everything from the Faiyum to the coast) appears to have been the main destination of the Mycenaean-era Greeks who traveled to Egypt for trade and diplomatic missions. To the Egyptians, their country was most usually called "Kemet", i.e. "the Black [Land]", referring to the black silt that made it so fertile, in contrast to "Deshret", i.e. "the Red [Land]", i.e. the desert all around the Nile Valley. In certain contexts, however, Egypt was also called "Tawy", "the Two Lands", referring to the political union of Upper and Lower Egypt.

Important note: names of Ancient Egyptian places are most often ''not'' what they were called in Ancient Egyptian. Most of the place names in English are actually Greek, as the Greeks seemed to have had a collective case of [[ForeignCultureFetish Egyptomania]] (seriously, the Pharaoh gave the Greeks ''the entire city of Naucratis'', there were so many of them) and wrote incessantly about it (Creator/{{Herodotus}} in particular was a big fan). This extends to the name of Egypt itself, which derives from the Greek ''Aigyptos'' (via the Latin ''Aegyptus''). ''Aigyptos'' in turn appears to derive from the Greeks' best attempt to render "''Hwt-ka-Ptah''" ("Home of the Soul of Ptah"), a New Kingdom-era name for Memphis (originally applied to the city metonymically from the great temple to Ptah it housed); Memphis (which throughout Egyptian history was usually the largest and richest city of Lower Egypt, if not all Egypt, and the administrative center of everything from the Faiyum to the coast) appears to have been the main destination of the Mycenaean-era Greeks who traveled to Egypt for trade and diplomatic missions. Egypt's true name was "Kemet", referring to the fertile Black Silt Land that the Nile delivered to them annually to sustain their lives. An example of this is the name of the city of Thebes--that was a Greek mishearing of an Egyptian term for the big temple, which they conveniently turned into the name of a city in Greece, but the Egyptians actually called the city ''Waset'' (or something similar). On the other hand, personal names tend to be modern guesses at the actual Egyptian--a somewhat problematic endeavor, as Egyptian writing leaves out even more vowels than modern Arabic and Hebrew--although some Greek names persist (e.g. Cheops for Khufu).

When most people think of Ancient Egypt (besides pyramids and Cleopatra), ''this'' is what they're thinking about--especially the Eighteenth Dynasty. Pharaoh from Literature/TheBible? Mostly New Kingdom; the ones mentioned in Exodus are probably all from the Eighteenth Dynasty. The king who invented monotheism? UsefulNotes/{{Akhenaten}}, Eighteenth Dynasty. Nefertiti? His wife. [[UsefulNotes/{{Tutankhamun}} King Tut]]? Akhenaten's son.[[note]]Probably. Or maybe his nephew. This era of history is very confused.[[/note]] Hatshepsut? Tut's great-great-great-great aunt. [[UsefulNotes/RamsesII Ramses the Great]] ([[Creator/PercyByssheShelley Ozymandias]], King of Kings) and those cool statutes? Nineteenth Dynasty.

By the time we get to the Fourth Dynasty, its first monarch, King Sneferu, seems to have thought these step pyramids were old hat. He wanted something...prettier. He liked pretty things,[[note]]There's a famous story that features Sneferu getting bored and deciding on the advice of the courtier/lector priest/magician Djadjaemankh that a great way to relieve his boredom would be to go on a pleasure cruise...on a boat rowed by twenty beautiful young ladies wearing nothing but jewelry and nets and rowing with oars made of ebony decorated with gold. Note that the courtier only suggested that Sneferu take a pleasure cruise in the company of beautiful women; Sneferu added the bit about them being young and wearing practically nothing, as well as the bit about the fancy oars.[[/note]] and these step pyramids weren't doing it for him. (His name, fittingly, comes from the same root as the Egyptian word for "beauty".) So his architects got to work and designed him the smooth-sided pyramid. It took a couple of tries (one collapsed and another had to be modified halfway through), but he finally got what he wanted with the famous Red Pyramid at Dahshur. His descendants in the Fourth Dynasty--his son Khufu, grandson Khafre, and great-grandson Menkaure--took the idea and ran with it, building the famous pyramids of the Giza Necropolis. This structure, the smooth-sided "true" pyramid, encased in shining white limestone and possibly topped with gold--became the standard form of royal tomb (assuming the king in question had enough time and resources to build one) for the rest of the Old Kingdom, and indeed for the next thousand years of Egyptian history (at which point the monarchs realized that pyramids just told would-be thieves "the gold is here").\\

That being said, it does seem that the Egyptians generally followed old-school patriarchal royal rules: The most legitimate succession was from father to son, with elder sons being favored over younger all else being equal. The "all else being equal" includes an important caveat: since the Egyptians allowed the king (at least) to take multiple wives and even more concubines, royal sons took their precedence in the succession from their mothers' status in the harem hierarchy. Possibly as early as the late Middle Kingdom, and definitely by the New, one of the king's wives was generally designated the "Great Royal Wife" (in Egyptian, ''Ḥemet-Nesut Weret''--more or less[[note]]Reconstructing Egyptian pronunciation is a headache and a half[[/note]]), i.e. Queen Consort, who in addition to her special status in the harem would also have special roles in the priesthood (generally being the chief priestess of the cult of Amun from the Middle Kingdom onward) and tended to have a lot of informal social power. (Before then there wasn't a formal title of "Great Royal Wife", but it seems that there was a hierarchy of wives with one recognized as the king's chief consort.) Below her were other "Royal Wives" (''Ḥemet-Nesut''), and then concubines. A son of a Great Royal Wife would precede any sons of Royal Wives in the succession, even if they were older than him, and sons of Royal Wives would precede sons of concubines in the same fashion.

That being said, it does seem that the Egyptians generally followed old-school patriarchal royal rules: The most legitimate succession was from father to son, with elder sons being favored over younger all else being equal. The "all else being equal" includes an important caveat: since the Egyptians allowed the king (at least) to take multiple wives and even more concubines, royal sons took their precedence in the succession from their mothers' status in the harem hierarchy. One of the king's wives was generally designated the "Great Royal Wife" (in Egyptian, ''Ḥemet-Nesut Weret''--more or less[[note]]Reconstructing Egyptian pronunciation is a headache and a half[[/note]]), i.e. Queen Consort, who in addition to her special status in the harem would also have special roles in the priesthood (generally being the chief priestess of the cult of Amun from the Middle Kingdom onward) and tended to have a lot of informal social power. Below her were other "Royal Wives" (''Ḥemet-Nesut''), and then concubines. A son of a Great Royal Wife would precede any sons of Royal Wives in the succession, even if they were older than him, and sons of Royal Wives would precede sons of concubines in the same fashion.