The Kingdoms of Egypt Until Roman Conquest
In the beginning, Egypt was divided into two kingdoms – Upper and Lower Egypt. Upper Egypt was near the Nile Rivers’ roots in Southern Africa, while Lower Egypt was in the north, near the Nile Delta.
Menes, a king of Upper Egypt finally conquered Lower Egypt and joined the two kingdoms together. This was the start of unified Egypt.
The Egyptian kingdom ended when the Romans conquered the country in 33 B.C. Until then, Egyptian history has been divided into three periods: The Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom.
During the Old Kingdom, “pharaoh”, a name for kings, was adopted. These first pharaohs established the first long dynasties of rulers. A dynasty is when the throne is passed on from father to son throughout the centuries.Dynasties ruled Egypt for over 3,000 years. One of the pharaohs of the Old Kingdom, Cheops, built the great pyramids at Giza. He also ordered the construction of the sphinx, a statue of a half-man, half-lion being. But then Egypt was conquered by neighboring tribes and fell into ruin. The Egyptian capital at the time was Memphis.
The Middle Kingdom rose up when the Egyptians rose into power again. This was also a time of progress and development, but the Middle Kingdom never was as powerful as the Old Kingdom had been. During this time, people began to dig irrigation ditches and canals to water their fields of crops. But later a tribe called the Hiks, meaning “lords of the rocky country”, conquered Egypt.
The Egyptians despised the Hiks, so in 1600 B.C. the country finally regained its independence from the Hiks. Now, the New Kingdom, or “golden age”, began. Pharaohs such as Tutmoses II and Tutmoses III organized military campaigns to neighboring countries such as the kingdom of Nubia in the south. The Egyptian empire stretched all over north Africa and eastern Asia. During this time the capital was moved from Memphis to Thebes.
Another ruler, Queen Hatshepsut, didn’t worry as much about conquering other lands as organizing the building of new temples and palaces.
In the 13th century B.C. one of the greatest battles in history was fought at Kadesh against the Hittites. The battle ended in a peace treaty between King Ramses II and the Hittite king.
But Egypt began to weaken and was eventually conquered by the Persians. Then Alexander the Great marched into Egypt. Egypt was now a province of the great Greek empire.
After Alexander died, a new dynasty, the Ptolemy’s, ruled Egypt. But with the death of the last Ptolemy ruler, Queen Cleopatra, Roman armies conquered Egypt.
