Ancient Egypt was a civilization along the lower Nile that lasted for about three thousand years. Villages along the river developed in the Neolithic, and around 3100 BCE the land was unified under the first pharaoh, traditionally Narmer. Its history is divided into the Old Kingdom, the age of the pyramids, the Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom, when rulers such as Hatshepsut, Ramesses II and Tutankhamun reigned. The Egyptians developed hieroglyphic writing, monumental architecture, mathematics and medicine, and a religion centred on the afterlife. The yearly flooding of the Nile made farming predictable and supported a strong state. Egypt was ruled in its last centuries by the Ptolemies and became a Roman province after the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BCE.
Before and after
- c. 4,750 BCEEruption of Hudson, Cerro
- c. 4,360 BCEEruption of Macauley
- c. 4,350 BCEEruption of Kikai
- c. 4,050 BCEEruption of Masaya
- from 5th millennium BCE to 1st millennium BCEAncient Egypt
- 5th millennium BCEOrigins of Jerusalem
- c. 4,000 BCEOrigins of Thinis
- from c. 4,000 BCE to 3,100 BCEUruk period
- c. 4,000 BCEEruption of Witori
More in Civilizations & archaeology
- c. 7,350s BCEConstruction of Cueva de las Manos
- 8th millennium BCEOrigins of Athens
- from c. 7,000 BCE to 586 BCEConstruction of Tel Megiddo
- from 56th century BCE to 35th century BCEUbaid period
- c. 3,600 BCEConstruction of Ġgantija
- c. 3,501 BCEPeople first tame horses on the steppe
The era
This moment belongs to the Human prehistory (300,000 years ago to 3,200 BCE), the human story before writing.