Given the extent to which climate has influenced our human habitation over the millennia, it is not surprising that talk about the weather should still top the list of our casual conversation. Certainly this must have been true for our ancestors who first ventured into northern Africa. For tens of thousands of years, the Sahara was so devoid of plant and animal life that the Nile Valley was the only habitable place to live. But then, about 8500 BCE, or just at the beginning of the Neolithic era, that situation changed dramatically. Within a few hundred years, a shift in the pattern of monsoon rains caused the desert to bloom. Shrubs and trees and grasses enticed elephants, giraffes, hippos, rhinos, and crocodiles into the area, accompanied by the humans who hunted them and who, like humans everywhere at this time, were learning the skills of agriculture and animal husbandry. By the end of the 6th millennia BCE, well-established human settlements were scattered throughout what is now the Sahara Desert and, according to the rock art of the time, people were frolicking in rain pools and freshwater lakes. Alas, the good times always come to an end. From 5300 BCE the rains began to retreat, and by 3500 BCE they had ended. No more frolicking. The Sahara was returned again to desert, and humans to the Nile Valley. There, with skills well honed by climatic challenges and in burgeoning settlements that grew rapidly into city-states, they proceeded to create the greatest civilization of ancient history.
Backed by a remarkable talent for centralised administration, the civilization took shape quickly. Autonomous city-states became administrative districts called nomes, each headed by a nomarch. These tended to cluster around tribal loyalties and a shared culture. In the north, the Badari culture was notable for its use of copper and high quality ceramics. In the south, the Naqada culture became itself a kind of proto-civilization that traded with Nubia to the south, the desert oases to the west, and the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean. By the middle of the 4th millennium BCE, the cultural differences between north and south were embodied in two distinct kingdoms – Upper and Lower Egypt – each with its own capital city and patron deity. Upper Egypt, known as Ta Shemau (“the land of reeds”), consisted of 22 nomes that were numbered progressively downriver from the Nubian border to just south of modern-day Cairo. Lower Egypt, known as Ta Mehu (“land of papyrus”), consisted of 20 nomes, again numbered in orderly fashion from just south of Cairo to the Mediterranean Sea. Amazingly, these 42 nomes remained in place as Egypt’s fundamental administrative structure for some 3500 years before finally being dismantled in 297 CE by the Roman Emperor Diocletian.
In 3150 BCE, the kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt were united under Narmer – the first pharaoh. Known as “king of the two lands”, he was the first of many to wear the Double Crown (the White Crown of Upper Egypt and the Red Crown of Lower Egypt) symbolising the pharaoh’s power over a unified Egypt. The unification was the most significant event in all of Egypt’s history. It allowed a now-centralised government to organise peasant labour, undertake massive irrigation projects, oversee the large-scale distribution of food, establish a justice system, collect taxes, and regulate trade. As a result, Egypt’s food surplus increased exponentially, as did the wealth of the now-deified pharaohs who proceeded to commission the colossal monuments, massive tombs, and exceptional works of art for which Egypt is famous.
From the time of its unification until it fell to foreign domination in the 1st millennium BCE, the history of this great civilization is divided into a series of three Kingdoms (the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms), separated by periods of relative instability known as Intermediate Periods.
The Old Kingdom (c. 3150 – 2150 BCE) ushered in 1000 years of relative peace and prosperity – (not bad for a new-born civilization) – marked by huge increases in agricultural productivity, the growing power and wealth of the pharaohs, the rise of an elite class of educated scribes and administrative officials, and stunning advances in architecture, art, and technology. Hieroglyphic writing became established during this time. And most of the major pyramids, built as tombs for the pharaohs and their consorts, were built during the height of absolute pharoanic rule (2630 – 2400 BCE).
The 1st Intermediate Period (c. 2150 – 1975 BCE). Towards the end of the Old Kingdom, the extravagance of the pharaohs eroded their economic power and weakened their central administration. Fifty years of drought further exacerbated their economic woes, prompting individual nomes to assert themselves. Once in control of their own resources and free from their loyalties to the pharaoh, local governors (nomarchs) began competing with one another for territorial and political power, leading to civil war between rival cities. Only when the forces of Thebes in Upper Egypt decisively defeated those of Herakleopolis in Lower Egypt were the Two Lands united again.
The Middle Kingdom (1975 – 1785 BCE). The reunification of Egypt under a centralised government led again to the restoration of stability and prosperity, a resumption of pyramid building, and a renaissance in art and literature. It also saw an increase in military activity. Egyptian forces conquered Nubian territory rich in quarries and gold mines, and the “Walls of the Ruler” were built in the Eastern Delta to defend against foreign attack. But once again such projects, combined with insufficient flooding of the Nile, weakened the economy and precipitated a slow decline into the 2nd Intermediate Period.
The 2nd Intermediate Period (c. 1785 – 1550 BCE). During the latter years of the Middle Kingdom, Semitic peoples from western Asia, perhaps driven by famine, settled in the Delta region and provided needed labour for the regime’s ambitious mining and building projects. Known for their military prowess as charioteers and archers, they eventually seized control of the region and came to power as the Hyksos (“foreign rulers”). Forced to retreat to Thebes, the pharaohs found themselves trapped between the Hyksos to the north and their Nubian allies to the south. It was payback time. The pharaohs were treated as vassals and required to pay tribute.
The New Kingdom (c. 1550 – 1155 BCE) is sometimes referred to as the Egyptian Empire because of a new emphasis on territorial expansion initiated by pharaoh Ahmose I. After some 200 years of Hyksos rule, he gathered sufficient strength to eradicate the Hyksos, reunite Upper and Lower Egypt, push Egypt’s borders south into Nubia, and eventually expand eastward as far as the Euphrates. It was an imperial stance that continued for the next 400 years, with one notable exception. Amenhotep IV, being more interested in religion than in foreign affairs, changed his name (which meant “Amun is pleased”) to Akhenaten, in honour of a lesser god named Aten whom he promoted to replace Amun as “king of the gods.” In what is often misinterpreted as the first-ever introduction of monotheism, he proceeded to suppress the worship of all other deities and attack the power of the priestly establishment. Amun, as it turned out, was less than pleased, as were his devotees who, following Akhenaten’s death in 1336 BCE, destroyed his monuments, removed his name from wall reliefs and statues, and erased all mention of his heresy.
More representative of the New Kingdom’s militaristic and imperial stance were Rameses II and III. The former, who reigned for 67 years (1279 – 1212 BCE) and is thought to be the pharaoh with whom Moses negotiated prior to the Exodus, occupied territories in what is now Israel, Lebanon, and Syria, fought the Hittite empire to a standstill at the Battle of Qadesh, and went on to build more temples, erect more monuments, and sire more children than any other pharaoh in Egypt’s history. Egypt’s wealth, however, was making it an increasingly tempting target of invasion. Several decades later, the last of the “great” pharaohs, Rameses III (1186 – 1155 BCE), was forced to defend the empire, first against Libyan tribesmen in the Western Delta, and then against the invading Sea People (whose identity has never been established) in two great land and sea battles.
As has so often been the case throughout history, a combination of military, economic, and environmental factors contributed to the beginning of the end of this once-great civilization. Heavy military costs exhausted the treasury, and a dimming of the sun’s light (probably caused by a massive eruption of the Hekla volcano in Iceland) for two decades following the death of Rameses III led to a series of droughts, below-normal flooding of the Nile, and famine. Such economic woes led in turn to civil unrest, an increase in official corruption, and a serious weakening of the pharaohs’ power – all of which issued in yet another splintering of Upper and Lower Egypt. From c. 1100 BCE, a series of weak pharaohs ruled Lower Egypt and the high priests of the temple of Amun at Thebes became the de facto rulers of Upper Egypt.
From there it was downhill all the way. Libyan princes held control for more than 200 years (from 945 BCE), followed by Nubian kings (from 728 BCE), who were defeated by the Assyrians in 664 BCE, who yielded to the Persians in 525 BCE, who were conquered by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE, who was succeeded by the Ptolemies, until Egypt was finally annexed as a Roman colony in 30 BCE. It was “game over” – a sure and certain reminder that even the greatest of civilizations and empires must one day come to an end. From the middle of the 1st century CE, Christianity took root in Alexandria and, within a few hundred years, the great temples of Egypt had either become churches or were abandoned to the desert. A new era had begun.
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