Key facts about ancient Egyptian civilization
25 cards · history
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| Front | Back |
|---|---|
| Nile River | Annual inundation sustained farming and transport Flowed south to north; predictable summer floods deposited fertile silt. |
| Narmer | c. 3100 BC; unified Egypt; founded the First Dynasty The Narmer Palette depicts the king wearing both crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt. |
| Old Kingdom | c. 2686–2181 BC; Age of Pyramids centered at Memphis Dynasties 3–6; centralized rule under viziers; decline followed drought and decentralization. |
| Step Pyramid of Djoser | c. 2670 BC; first monumental stone pyramid Built at Saqqara by architect Imhotep as stacked mastabas in a vast complex. |
| Khufu | Fourth Dynasty pharaoh; builder of the Great Pyramid Reigned c. 2589–2566 BC; known to Greeks as Cheops. |
| Great Pyramid of Giza | c. 2560 BC; tomb of Khufu; tallest for ~3,800 years About 2.3 million stone blocks; workers’ village suggests paid labor, not slaves. |
| Egyptian hieroglyphs | Pictographic-consonantal script for monumental texts Used with hieratic and demotic; mixed phonetic and logographic signs. |
| Rosetta Stone | 196 BC decree in three scripts; key to decipherment Inscribed in hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek; cracked by Champollion in 1822. |
| Scribes | Literate officials vital for administration Trained in temples and palaces; wrote with reed pens on papyrus and ostraca. |
| Diet | Bread and beer were staple foods and wages Emmer bread and barley beer, with onions, fish, and dates; rations fed workers. |
| Women’s property rights | Women could own, inherit, and bequeath property Women had legal personhood, could sue, contract, and divorce independently. |
| Ma’at | Principle of cosmic order, truth, and justice Pharaoh upheld Ma’at; in judgment, the heart was weighed against her feather. |
| Mummification | Body preservation to house the ka after death Natron drying, organ removal to canopic jars, linen wrappings, and amulets. |
| Book of the Dead | Funerary spells for safe passage in the afterlife “Book of Coming Forth by Day”; personalized papyri from the New Kingdom onward. |
| Middle Kingdom | c. 2055–1650 BC; reunified under Mentuhotep II Theban rulers; literary flowering; Senusret III campaigned and fortified Nubia. |
| Hyksos | Asiatic rulers in the Delta; introduced chariots Ruled c. 1650–1550 BC from Avaris; expelled by Ahmose I, starting the New Kingdom. |
| New Kingdom | c. 1550–1077 BC; imperial peak of Egypt Dynasties 18–20; empire in Nubia and Levant; royals buried in the Valley of the Kings. |
| Hatshepsut | Female pharaoh; trade expedition to Punt Ruled c. 1479–1458 BC; built at Deir el-Bahri and Karnak; later damnatio memoriae. |
| Thutmose III | Warrior king; expanded to Syria and Nubia Won the Battle of Megiddo c. 1457 BC; led numerous campaigns and took tribute. |
| Akhenaten | Aten-focused reforms; capital at Akhetaten Amarna Period art and religion shifted from Amun; reigned c. 1353–1336 BC. |
| Tutankhamun | Restored traditional cults; tomb found intact in 1922 Reigned c. 1332–1323 BC; KV62 discovered by Howard Carter; famed gold mask. |
| Ramesses II | Long-reigning builder; peace treaty after Kadesh Reigned c. 1279–1213 BC; monuments at Abu Simbel; capital at Pi-Ramesses. |
| Third Intermediate Period | c. 1069–664 BC; fragmentation and foreign dynasties Libyan 22nd and Kushite 25th Dynasties; Theban high priests held regional power. |
| Persian conquest | 525 BC conquest by Cambyses II; Achaemenid rule Egypt became the 27th Dynasty satrapy; later the 31st before Alexander’s arrival. |
| Cleopatra VII | Last Ptolemaic ruler; annexed by Rome in 30 BC Allied with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony; her death ended Ptolemaic Egypt. |