The history of Ancient Egypt
The history of
Ancient Egypt
The more than 3000 year long history
of Ancient Egypt has been divided into 8 or 9 periods, sometimes called
Kingdoms. This modern-day division is somewhat arbitrarily based on the
country's unity and wealth and the power of the central government. The Ancient
Egyptians themselves did not group their rulers according to such criteria.
They rather seem to have developed the notion of dynasties throughout their
history. The Palermo Stone simply lists the kings one after the other, without
any apparent need of grouping them. The Turin Kinglist, which is more recent,
has grouped the kings according to their descendance or origin. Thus, Amenemhat
I and his descendants, are described as the kings of Itj-Tawi, the capital
whence they ruled. We owe the division into 30 dynasties as we use it now to
Manetho, an Egyptian priest who lived at the beginning of the Ptolemaic Era. In
many cases, however, it is not clear why Manetho has grouped some kings into
one dynasty and other kings into another. The 18th Dynasty, for instance,
starts with Ahmose, a brother of the last king in Manetho's 17th Dynasty.
Theoritically, Ahmose and Kamose should thus have been grouped in the same
dynasty. Thutmosis I, on the other hand, does not appear to have been related
to his predecessor, Amenhotep I, but still both kings are grouped in the 18th
Dynasty.
Some Egyptologists have attempted to
abandon the notions of Kingdoms and dynasties, but for the sake of conformity
with most publications dealing with Ancient Egypt, this site will continue
using both notions. Visitors may, however, notice that the timeline below and
the timescale used throughout The Ancient Egypt Site may be somewhat different
from some of the other books or web-sites they have consulted.
Visitors should also be aware that,
as is the case with any publication dealing with Ancient Egypt, dates are
approximations and should not be taken literally. In many cases it is not known
just how long a king may have ruled. Comparing different publications on the
hisory and chronology of Ancient Egypt, visitors may notice that one king may
be credited with a fairly short reign in one publication and a fairly long in
another. This impacts the absolute chronology, that is to say, Egyptian history
using our year numbering.
In The Ancient Egypt Site, some
dates will be proposed but again, they should only be seen as approximations
and not as absolutes. A discussion on the length of the reign of a king may
follow and this discussion may show the likelihood that this king reigned
longer or shorter than the dates linked to his reign.
It can thus not be stressed enough
that the provided dates are just a frame of reference helping readers to gain
insight in the sequence of events and occurences and to have an approximate
idea of the age of certain monuments and artefacts.
Список литературы
Для
подготовки данной работы были использованы материалы с сайта http://www.ancient-egypt.org