Good weather for farming: the Pre- and Early Dynastic period (3150-2700 BC)
During the first period, Egyptian society moved from an egalitarian society to chiefdoms and then to a state. By the end of the Pre-dynastic period several regional chiefs from the larger towns had gained administrative control over other settlements and the surrounding countryside. Their power came from their ability to manage food production and distribute food in times of shortages. Grave goods found in burial sites excavated from this era indicate there as an increasing social stratification and the emergence of an elite.
Sometime around 3050 BC, Upper and Lower Egypt were united under a single leader and the Egyptian State was born. Cities grew larger and the power of the ruling “chief“, now called a pharaoh, grew stronger. An elaborate religious institution formed, a standing army was created, and an administrative bureaucracy of scribes, tax collectors, census takers, and irrigation managers emerged. Controlling this bureaucracy was the grand vizer, second only to the pharaoh. Along with the bureaucracy came the development of the Egyptian’s hieroglyphic writing and major innovations in the arts.
By 2650 the power of the pharaoh was absolute and the pharaoh became a “God King”. He (or she - there was one she) controlled the Nile “through the magical powers of his godliness” as well as through the irrigation projects he authorized. As high priest, the pharaoh presided over rituals to assure the cooperation of the Nile and the fertility of the soil. As the powers of the king increased, so did the preparations for his burial. It was during the time of the Old Kingdom that the famous pyramids and the Great Sphinx of Giza were built.
Bad weather for faming…Drought then Flooding
Then the power of the pharaoh to control the Nile failed. Sometime around 2200 BC, the monsoon rains that feed the Nile did not come, crops failed, and the Old Kingdom collapsed. The country descended into turmoil. For a period of about 100-200 years Egypt was ruled by local chiefs who fought among themselves for power.
Finally, around 2065, one of the more powerful chiefs managed to reunite Egypt. Over the next 150 years the successors of this powerful chief again gained total authority over Egypt. This was done partly by overseeing ambitious irrigation projects that were to protect Egypt from another failure of the Nile’s land nourishing floods (remember China?). A canal 300 feet wide was dug to natural depression in the landscape that served are a reservoir which could be filled during the flood season and the water used during the dry season. With food surpluses, Egypt flourished for over two hundred years (the Middle Kingdom) only to be betrayed by the Nile again. This time it was excessive floods. Egypt again descended into chaos. This time famine was aggregated by a challenge from without, migrants and warriors from the south, the west, and the north.
From about 3000 -1000 BC tribes from Arabia and North Africa (Semites) and from the Eurasian Steppes (Indo-Europeans) began to migrate toward the centers of civilization. The warm climate that had precipitated the move towards a state society in Mesopotamia and Egypt had also allowed for an increase in the population of tribal lands around the Near East. When the climate began to cool (carrying capacity fell), these people began to move. These migrations started slowly around 2500 BC and reached a crescendo between 2000-1000 BC. A group of Indo-Europeans moved into Greece and became the Myceneans. Several groups of Semites moved into the lands around Mesopotamia, including one group called the Hebrews who settled in a place called Palestine. Around 1650 BC, Egypt too was taken over by “rulers from foreign lands”, a group of Semite people history calls the Hyksos.
For the next 100 or so years, the Hyksos ruled Egypt from the Delta, extracting tributes from Upper Egypt and building resentments. They adopted the traditions of Egyptians and continued their tradition of divine rule even calling their rulers pharaohs.
Then around 1560 BC, a chief from Upper Egypt challenged the rule of the Hyksos. Using military techniques learned from the Hyksos (horse-drawn war chariots and bows), and some help from Myceane, he expelled the Hyksos and the time of New Kingdom began.
The rulers of the New Kingdom were militarily aggressive and managed to forge an empire far beyond the boundaries of the Old Kingdom including Nubia to the south and Palestine to the North. Egypt became rich extracting tributes from the conquered lands and again built huge monuments, like the Temples of Karnak and Abu Simbel .They buried their dead mummified pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings. In the North, they ran into another group of Semites, the Hittites who had forged an empire as large and as powerful as that of the New Kingdom of Egypt. For many years there was a stand-off at their respective borders. Then in 1200 BC (oops - there is that date again!) the Hittite Empire vanished, the Myceaneans were routed by migrating tribes, and Egypt was about to enter yet another time of turmoil and decline (1070-712 BC).
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