Ancient Egypt

Discovering Ancient Egypt

How can you discover ancient Egypt? You can visit the pharaoh's treasures in the world's great museums. You can read travelers' tales recorded by writers of the past, such as the Greek historian Herodotus, and you can learn fro Egyptologists. When. When Napoleon Bonaparte's army invaded Egypt in 1798, the French discovered many of its ancient treasures. Since then Egyptologists have studied monuments, painted friezes, objects from the tombs and things people threw away that the dry climate has preserved. They have deciphered records of daily events and other writing that survives on stone and papyrus. If you ever visit Egypt, you will be able to see the people who now live beside the Nile. They still use some of the old farming methods, and tools have changed little since ancient times. But their crops no longer depend on the time of inundation or flooding, because the Aswan Dam now controls Egypt's lifeline.

Dynasties of Ancient Egypt

Egyptologists have pieced together the sequence of the kings of ancient Egypt from fragments of inscribed stone and papyrus. Generally, a dynasty lasted for the time one family or group of pharaohs was in power. There were three very successful periods. During the Old Kingdom, the first pyramid at Saqqara and the Great Pyramid at Giza were built. In the Middle Kingdom, trade expanded and arts, crafts and temple building flourished. The Hyksos were expelled at the beginning of the New Kingdom and the pharaohs of this time established en empire.

Ancient Egypt in the Ice Age. Photo by Elena.

Did you know a few things about Ancient Egypt?

To save them from the rising waters of Lake Nasser, the temples from Philae Island were taken piece by piece to Agilkia Island and rebuilt..

When the pyramids were built at Giza, desert surrounded them. Now, the suburbs of Cairo are creeping close to them.

The British Museum displays coffins and mummies. The Cairo Museum has objects from Tutankhamun's tomb. The temple of Dendur has been rebuilt in New York<s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The great Sphinx at Giza is showing its age. From time to time expert restorers have erected scaffolding to maker repairs.

The voyage or Ra II: Norvegian scientist Thor Heyerdahl wanted to test the seaworthiness of reed boats. In 1970, he built Ra II from bundles of papyrus lashed together with rope. It took 57 days to sail from Morocco to the West Indies. This did not show that the ancient Egyptians made such a journey, but it did prove that papyrus vessels were capable of surviving long sea voyages.