History and Culture of Ancient Egypt

Please click on the places with red marks!

Historically and culturally Ancient Egypt is rich and fascinating. The people in Ancient Egypt called their country Kemet. Its history covers 7000 years. In the beginning, there were various principalities in the Nile valley between today’s Aswan and the Nile Delta. As time went by, these principalities merged into two kingdoms: Upper Egypt or „Nile Valley“ and Lower Egypt or „Nile Delta“. Upper and Lower Egypt were united under the legendary Menes (3000 BC), the founder of the First Dynasty. Since Menes and particularly from the 3rd and 4th Dynasty, the Ancient Egyptian culture reached its peak. In Sakkara, Imhotep, a priest and philosopher, medical practitioner and architect, constructed the Step Pyramid for King Zoser (approximately 2720 - 2700 BC). Khufu or Cheops (approximately 2620 - 2580 BC) had the large Pyramid of Giza built for himself.

Historians divide the time since Menes into three periods: the Old Empire, the Middle Empire, and the New Empire. During this time, Kemet was ruled by more than 30 dynasties, ever so often interrupted by transition periods and times of foreign rule. For example, the country was governed by the Assyrians (671 - 564 BC), the Persians (525 - 402 and 343 - 332 BC), and the Romans (30 BC - 395 AD). In 395 AD, Egypt became a part of the Byzantine Empire. Finally, in 640, the country was conquered by Arabs and was islamized.

The people in Kemet worshiped many different gods and goddesses such as Ra, Amun, Atum, Isis, Osiris, Petoth, Haur and Ptah. As far back as the first century AD the new Christian faith gained a foothold in Egypt and soon came into full flower.

Translation from the dtv encyclopedia:
"The language of Ancient Egypt is closely related to the Hamitic languages of North and East Africa and the Semitic languages of the Near East. Linguistic historians distinguish:

• Ancient Egyptian, the written language of the Old Empire;
• Middle Egyptian, the language of the Middle Empire, later considered to be the classical Egyptian language, which in the New Empire was still used for documents;
• neo-Egyptian, the everyday language of the New Empire, used well into the 5th Century AD for documents (Demotic language), and
• the Coptic language, the everyday language before Islamization.

The development of a specific script (besides the classical hieroglyphs) began towards the end of the 2nd dynasty; it is called Hieratic script because, in Graeco-Roman times, it was used for religious texts. The heavily abbreviated script used since the 25th dynasty for everyday purposes is called Demotic script. In the 3rd century the hieroglyphic script was replaced by the Greek alphabet and soon forgotten. It was not until the discovery of the famous stone of Rosette in 1799 and its deciphering by J.F. Champollion that reading Ancient Egyptian inscriptions was possible again.”