Egypt's history is unmatched in antiquity, richness, and variety. In "A History of Egypt," Jason Thompson presents a comprehensive panorama of 5,000 years of Egyptian history, highlighting the strong connections between the ancient land of the Pharaohs and the modern-day Arab nation.
Scholars often divide Egyptian history into distinct eras: prehistoric, pharaonic, Greco-Roman, Coptic, medieval Islamic, Ottoman, and modern. These eras are rarely studied in relation to one another. Thompson argues that few countries have as many threads of continuity running through their entire historical experience.
Exploring the Great Pyramid of Giza: Unveiling Ancient Mysteries
Early Dynasties and the Old Kingdom
Northeastern Africa was once "wooded uplands, lush grassy plains, brimming with streams, and numerous lakes, abundant in flora and fauna for food gathering people" before becoming the Sahara Desert. Egypt’s earliest Neolithic site is Nabta Playa, dated from at least 6000 BC. That culture collapsed around 3350 BC. The First Dynasty moved to Memphis southwest of modern-day Cairo. Memphis was the administrative center for 2,500 years.
During the First Dynasty, human sacrifice for rulers was practiced. Servants and even dogs were strangled to death to placate their ruler’s wishes. Egypt already had papyrus then. The Old Kingdom traded with Lebanon, even without ports. Kings were called pharaohs, meaning "big house," and were considered gods, enabling them to assemble workers for large projects. The highest office under the pharaoh was the vizier.
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Egyptians wrote in hieroglyphs on papyrus and walls. The falcon was the symbol for the god Horus, while Thoth was represented by an ibis. Old Kingdom Egyptians believed in an eternal afterlife, leading to the construction of monuments to the dead. Khufu had the largest pyramid at Giza built in the Fourth Dynasty. Building this pyramid required placing one stone every two to three minutes of the working day. The Giza stones weighed an average of two and a half tons each. After Khufu’s pyramid, subsequent pyramids became smaller. After a period of upheaval next came the Middle Kingdom.
The population went from under 200,000 to as high as 4.5 million. Most worked the land in the countryside.
Map of Ancient Egypt
Middle and New Kingdoms
The Middle Kingdom fell apart politically, starting the Second Intermediate Period (c.1640-1550 BC) when the Hyksos ruled, followed by the New Kingdom. The Hyksos introduced better looms, potter’s wheels, and metalworking. Amun and Ra amalgamated, forming Amun-Ra, and the Karnak and Luxor Temples appeared. Nefertiti was the wife of Akhenaten. Tutankhaten (c. 1336-1327 BC) died as a teenager. The discovery of his tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 1922 was significant because most Egyptian tombs had been plundered.
Ramesses II (c. 1279-1213 BC) built Abu Simbel in Nubia, featuring four colossal seated statues. The Third Intermediate Period lasted 360 years, during which many tombs were robbed. Nubian rule was followed by Assyrian and then Persian rule.
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The Ptolemaic Period
Egypt created its first navy under Necho II (610-595 BC). Egyptians welcomed Alexander the Great when he invaded in 332 BC, disliking Persian rule. He founded Alexandria as a Greek port and left to conquer the Persian Empire. After Alexander's death, Ptolemy I took over Egypt, starting the Ptolemaic Period. Alexandria became the greatest city in the Eastern Mediterranean and the undisputed center of Greek culture.
A causeway was built to Pharos Island, where the famed Pharos Lighthouse was constructed. Alexandria also housed a museum and the famed library, making it the "first city of the civilized world.” The Library at Alexandria contained "from five to seven hundred thousand rolls, and one roll often contained more than one work.” Ptolemy III seized writings entering his port, copied them, and returned the copies, not the originals. The Old Testament was translated into Greek during this period.
Cleopatra VII
During the Ptolemaic Period, Macedonians and Greeks ruled over native Egyptians. Cleopatra VII was the last ruler, and the only one who learned to speak Egyptian. The Rosetta Stone originated from Ptolemy V’s reign. Under the Ptolemies, the Sphinx at Giza was painted red.
Roman power increased, and "no one could hope to rule in Egypt without Roman approval.” Cleopatra VII is known for her relationships with Caesar and Mark Anthony, using romance to preserve Egyptian independence. When Caesar fled Egypt, he burned the Egyptian fleet, which spread to the Library, burning it to the ground in 48 BC. After Caesar's death, Octavian took over, leading to conflict with Antonius and Cleopatra. Antonius lost the Battle at Actium and died, followed by Cleopatra's suicide, ending the Ptolemaic dynasty.
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Roman and Byzantine Rule
Egypt became part of the Roman Empire, and Octavian became Emperor Augustus. Rome ruled Egypt from Alexandria, Babylon (present-day Cairo), and Thebes. Augustus took obelisks from Egypt, one of which ended up in New York’s Central Park. Rome has more Egyptian obelisks than Egypt does. Alexandria remained a center of scholarship, and Augustus sent over a million tons of Egyptian grain to Rome annually.
Under Emperor Constantine, Egypt fell under Byzantine rule, and grain shipments were diverted to Constantinople. Constantine granted Christians freedom of worship with the Edict of Milan in 313, marking the beginning of Coptic Egypt. Half of Egypt became Christian, making Christianity the predominant religion.
Islamic Egypt
In 619, Persians took Egypt from the Byzantines, but the Byzantines regained control after ten years. In 610, Muhammad began receiving "divine revelations," and after his death in 632 AD, Muslim armies invaded Syria and Mesopotamia. In 641 AD, the Byzantines surrendered Egypt to the Muslims, making it a province in the growing Arab Empire. Christians were tolerated but not equal. Arabic replaced Greek in 706 AD, and Coptic slowly disappeared.
The Crusades started in 1095, and Saladin emerged historically. The Mamluks freed Egypt from Mongol invasion. The only way to become a Mamluk was to start as a slave and rise through the military. Under Mamluk influence, minarets became a standard Egyptian architectural feature. The Ottomans then took Egypt from the Mamluks.
Ottoman and Modern Egypt
Egypt remained a province of the Ottoman Empire for four hundred years. The Red Sea was protected by the Ottomans to keep the Portuguese away. Alexandria deteriorated after the Crusade of Alexandria in 1356. The French occupation lasted three years, after which Egypt returned to the Ottomans. The British took Egyptian antiquities, including the Rosetta Stone. Then came Muhammad Ali, considered the founder of modern Egypt.
He wanted to turn Egypt into a modern industrial society and hired Europeans to do so. He created canals, dikes, and dams, improving irrigation and enabling multiple crops annually. Alexandria started making a comeback. “Muhammad Ali’s strong emphasis on foreign trade made the city’s two harbors busy again.” His “administrative reforms outlived him and became part of the Egyptian state”.
Muhammad Ali’s son Said started the building of the Suez Canal. New steam technology allowed the construction and the movement of ships with bad winds and currents being no longer an issue. Still, “working conditions were often horrific; sometimes the men had to dig with their bare hands” for little pay and little food.
Suez Canal Map
Egypt’s population went from 4.5 million in 1800 to 7.8 million in 1882. A middle-class appeared of government workers, teachers, and businessmen. Cairo was modernized, medieval neighborhoods ripped down, “destroying many architectural treasures along the way.” European style hotels were built. The first Baedeker guide to Egypt gets published in 1878.
Egypt goes bankrupt and is largely owned by European bankers. “Henceforth, Egypt, though a province of the Ottoman Empire, was under European control”. In 1882, the British move in and occupy Egypt for seventy years even though legally Egypt was still a province of the Ottoman Empire. It was called a “veiled protectorate”. The British help with water issues to jack up the cotton output and return Egypt to solvency. They also win the battle of Omdurman against the Sudan (reconquest of the Sudan) and then enter Khartoum to loot it (no doubt in a civilized fashion). They throw the Mahdi’s body into the Nile and Kitchener keeps the skull (those Brits sure are civilized).
After WWI, France gets the spoils of Syria and Lebanon, while Britain gets Palestine, Transjordan, and Iraq. Egypt’s King Farouk was handsome, well spoken, and an autocrat like his dad Fuad. He was a womanizer and soon grew “grossly obese.” The British make a stand two times at al-Alamein; the second battle ensures that Egypt was saved from the Germans in WWII. The last British troops leave Egypt in 1956.
Nasser and Beyond
Then comes nationalist Nasser. To the US, Nasser’s crime was wanting to be non-aligned and was even willing to hang with non-Western nations - the horror! He nationalized the Suez Canal which put Britain’s panties in a bunch, but most of the world “affirmed the right of a state to nationalized institutions within its own borders.” The Canal reopens in 1957. The Aswan Dam is completed in 1970 making it the biggest damn dam in the world; Abu Simbel was relocated on “higher ground” (soon to be a Stevie Wonder song). This meant Nubian archaeological finds would be lost under the water, and Egypt would now need chemical fertilizer the dam kept the annual flooding of the Nile from happening.
But the High Dam dramatically increased the size of arable land, added electricity, and water available in times of famine. Nassar establishes minimum wage, increases health care, subsidizes housing for the poor, and expands education - the kind of do-gooder stuff that got the US mad at Gaddafi and makes today’s Republicans foam at the mouth. The July Laws of 1961, nationalize “most of Egypt’s factories, banks, insurance companies, transport facilities, import-export companies, large hotels, print and broadcast media and many other areas of the economy.”
On the negative side, Nassar’s mukhabarat security services had doormen informing on occupants and “people were afraid to speak openly.” By 1967 Egypt’s debt was $2 billion and made worse by a Western economic boycott. There was a mass exodus of Egyptian workers abroad, and it’s still the same today. Most of them earn more abroad than they could have earned in Egypt.
In 1967 Israel attacks Egypt, steals the Golan Heights from Syria and the entire West Bank from the Palestinians, and takes the Sinai from Egypt. Tourists stopped coming to Egypt and the Suez Canal no longer offered Egypt deeply needed funds. Nassar turned to the UN which issued UN Security Council resolution 242, “which called for Israel to withdraw from the territories it had taken in the 1967 war.” Then Nassar dies and 4 million Egyptians hit the streets to mourn “the first truly native Egyptian ruler of Egypt in more than two thousand years.”
Israel gets a new prime minister, Menachem Begin, “a former Zionist terrorist who had been responsible for the 1948 Deir Yasin Massacre in which some two hundred Palestinian civilians, mostly old men, women and children, were slaughtered.” Nassar’s replacement is vice-president Sadat, a known yes man. He dismantles Nassar’s security state (but not all of it) and people started speaking their minds again. When Sadat removes the Russians from Egypt, his popularity locally soared. But without Sinai oil and the Suez Canal, Egypt sorely needed cash.
Jason Thompson’s "A History of Egypt" offers a cohesive account of Egypt’s past, providing a guide through its history, from predynastic kingdoms to the nation-state of the twenty-first century. Thompson addresses central issues such as how Egyptian history can be treated as a whole and how the West has shaped prevailing images of it through direct contact and Western scholarship.
Drawing on current historical scholarship and his own research, Jason Thompson has written a comprehensive narrative of the long course of human history by the Nile, suitable for students, travelers, and general readers.
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