Origins
Ancient Egypt began with the unification of the Upper Nile (southern) and Lower Nile (northern delta) kingdoms around 3100 BC. Tradition credits the first pharaoh, Narmer (also called Menes), with the unification. The early dynasties established the institutional patterns — divine kingship, monumental architecture, a centralised state managing the annual Nile flood — that would persist for nearly three millennia.
The pyramid age
The Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BC) is the era of the great pyramids. The Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara (c. 2630 BC) was the first; the Great Pyramid of Giza, built for Pharaoh Khufu around 2560 BC, is the largest. The Old Kingdom collapsed around 2181 BC in a period of drought and political fragmentation now called the First Intermediate Period.
Empire and the New Kingdom
The Middle Kingdom (c. 2055–1650 BC) reunified the country. The New Kingdom (c. 1550–1069 BC) was the imperial peak — Egypt controlled territory from modern Sudan to modern Syria. The New Kingdom produced the pharaohs most familiar to modern audiences: Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Akhenaten (the heretic king of the brief monotheistic experiment), his probable son Tutankhamun, and Ramesses II (“the Great”). The Battle of Kadesh (c. 1274 BC) between Ramesses II and the Hittite Empire produced the earliest surviving peace treaty.
Decline
Egypt entered a long period of decline after the New Kingdom. It was conquered by the Nubians (25th Dynasty, c. 747–656 BC), the Assyrians (671 BC), the Persians (525 BC), and Alexander the Great (332 BC). After Alexander’s death, Egypt was ruled by the Macedonian Greek Ptolemaic dynasty for nearly three centuries — the dynasty that built the Lighthouse of Alexandria and the Library of Alexandria. The last Ptolemaic ruler, Cleopatra VII, allied with Mark Antony against Rome and died in 30 BC after their defeat at Actium. Octavian made Egypt a Roman province.
Religion and writing
Ancient Egyptian religion was polytheistic, organised around a pantheon of approximately 1,500 deities. The most important were Ra (sun), Osiris (underworld), Isis (mother goddess), and Horus (kingship). Egyptian hieroglyphic writing developed by approximately 3200 BC and remained in use, alongside the simpler hieratic and demotic scripts, until the 4th century AD. The script was deciphered in 1822 by Jean-François Champollion using the Rosetta Stone (discovered 1799).
What survives
The pyramid complex at Giza, Karnak temple at Luxor, the Valley of the Kings, and Abu Simbel are all extant. The mummified remains of dozens of pharaohs are in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Substantial papyrus literature has survived — the Pyramid Texts, the Book of the Dead, medical and mathematical papyri. The Rosetta Stone is in the British Museum. The Egyptian language continued into the medieval period as Coptic and is still used liturgically by the Coptic Orthodox Church.