Ancient Egypt And The Old Kingdom

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The old kingdom is the name given to the period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization. The first of the three so-called “kingdom” periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley (the others being Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom). The term itself was coined by the eighteenth-century historians and the distinction between the Old Kingdom and the Early Dynastic Period is not one which would have been recognized by Ancient Egyptians. Not only was the last king of the Early Dynastic Period related to the first two kings of the Old Kingdom, but the “capital”, the royal residence, renamed at Ineb-Hedg, the Ancient Egyptian name for Memphis. The basic justification for a separation between the two periods is the revolutionary change in architecture accompanied by the effects on Egyptian society and economy of large-scale building projects. The Old Kingdom is most commonly regarded as the period from the Third Dynasty through to the Sixth Dynasty. The third Dynasty of Ancient Egypt is the first dynasty of the Old Kingdom. The sixth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt is often combined with Dynasties III, IV, and V under the group title, the Old Kingdom. Many Egyptologists also include the Memphite seventh and eighth Dynasties in the Old Kingdom as a continuation of the administration centralized at Memphis. While the Old Kingdom was period of internal security and prosperity, it was followed by a period of disunity and relative cultural decline referred to by Egyptologists as the First Intermediate Period. During the Old Kingdom, the king of Egypt (not called the Pharaoh until the New Kingdom) became a living god, who ruled absolutely and could demand the services and we...

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...ule of the Hyksos during the Second Intermediate Period, the New Kingdom saw Egypt attempt to create a buffer between the Levant and Egypt, and attained its greatest territorial extent. Similarly, in response to very successful 17th century attacks by the Powerful Kingdom of Kush, the New Kingdom felt compelled to expand far south into Nubia and hold wide territories to the Near East. The Kingdom of Kush was an ancient African kingdom situated on the confluences of the Blue Nile, White Nile, and River Atbarah in what is now the Republic of Sudan. The Blue Nile is a river originating at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. The White Nile is a river of Africa, one of the two main tributaries of the Nile from Egypt, the other being the Blue Nile. The Atbarah River in northeast Africa rises in northwest Ethiopia. Egyptian armies fought Hittite armies for control of modern-day Syria.

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