The first dynasty: 3200 ~ 2850 BC. From menes to Qatar, there are eight pharaohs.

The second dynasty: 2850 ~ 2686 BC. From Hotepseknemoui to kask, there are six pharaohs.

Ancient Kingdom or Memphis Empire (2686 ~ 2 BC181year)

The third dynasty: 2686 ~ 26 BC13 years. From Neteriknet-Djeser in Natri to Houni, * * * has five kings. Jossel's rule was the beginning of power and victory. At this time, a magnificent stone building represented by the stepped pyramid building in Shakala appeared. Imhotep, the architect, writer and scholar of the complex, became one of the first great men in history books. This era is a period of the development of a powerful centralized monarchy. The monarch sat in Memphis and appointed the governor to rule the country.

The fourth dynasty: 26 BC13 ~ 2494. From Snefrou to Skepseskaf, there were six or seven pharaohs. Judging from the grandeur of the pyramids, the rule of Snefru, Khufu and harff was the peak of this era. The pyramids built in Dashar, Merton and Kisa show the good governance and economic prosperity of the dynasty. The fifth dynasty: 2494 ~ 2345 BC. From Uzer to Unas, there were nine pharaohs. The most famous are Sahoure and Djedkare-Isesi.

In the fifth dynasty, the consciousness of "sun worship" developed rapidly, and the famous pyramid inscription was engraved on the wall of the Wunis pyramid in Shakara. The sixth dynasty: 2345 ~ 2 BC181year. From Titi I to Queen Nitocris, the seven kings include Pepi I and Pepy II who lived for hundreds of years.

Although the Sixth Dynasty was famous for its military and commercial expeditions as far away as the southern tip of Africa, Memphis, a place where some governors kept expanding and concentrating in history, was threatened and caused civil strife.

The first transitional period (2181~1991BC)

Seventh dynasty: only ruled for 70 days.

The eighth dynasty: 2 18 1 ~ 2 130 BC. * * * There were eight to twenty-seven pharaohs, but their names were not recorded.

The ninth dynasty to the tenth dynasty: 2 130 ~ 2040 BC in the north. There are six pharaohs, three of whom are called Katie.

Eleventh dynasty: 2 130 ~ 2040 BC in the south. * * * There are three pharaohs.

Montuhotep II unified the whole country in 2050 BC, and the Thebes monarch of the 1 1 dynasty ruled the whole of Egypt. Although this makes their hometown Thebes more and more important, it is still not enough to replace Memphis. The rulers of Thebes had to travel back and forth in fashion, and built palaces and small towns such as Yiti-Tawi at the entrance of Fayoum in the 12 dynasty. The dynasty moved the center of power northward without giving up Thebes, indicating that the powerful centralized government was gradually restored.

The Middle Kingdom or the First Empire of Thebes (BC 199 1 ~ 1786)

The end of the eleventh dynasty: 2060 ~ 2000 BC. Three Montuhot elders unified Egypt for the first time around 2040 BC. Twelfth dynasty: 2000 ~ 1786 BC. Seven pharaohs were named Amon Hamat or Sesot Rees, and the last ruler was Queen Nefirul of Zeebek.

Like other countries in the world, stability and turmoil always appear alternately. The provincial decentralization forces and other forces unknown in history destroyed the Thebes regime inherited from the twelfth dynasty, and Egypt was divided into many vassal States.

The second transitional period (BC 1786 ~ BC 1567)

13th to 14th dynasties: BC 1786 ~ BC 1674. There are about forty pharaohs, some of whom are named Sebehotep. Some pharaohs ruled the northern, central and southern old French areas at the same time. Since BC 1730, these kings have only been vassals of Pharaoh Hikso.

Fifteenth to sixteenth generations: BC 1674 ~ BC 1567. The 16th dynasty is called "Little Sissok" dynasty, which only exists in the eastern delta. There were five pharaohs in the "Great Sissok" dynasty, including one Khyan and two Apopi.

Seventeenth dynasty: BC 1674 ~ 1567. Ten pharaohs ruled Thebes and its surrounding areas. They are vassals of Sissok. The last three pharaohs, Ta 'a I, Ta 'a II and Ka Mosis, began to struggle with the Sissok people in the north.

The New Kingdom or the Second Kingdom of Thebes (BC 1567 ~ 1085)

Eighteenth dynasty: 1567 ~ 1320 BC. From Ahmosis to Horan Heb, * * * has fourteen monarchs, including four Bittemos and four Amenorfis. Empress Ashipusu, Empress Ahnatun and Empress Tutankhamun all belonged to this dynasty.

The 19 dynasty: 1320 ~ 1200 BC. Nine pharaohs of Ramses, including Ramesses I II and seti i II.

Twentieth dynasty: BC 1200 ~ 1085. Ten monarchs, except the first named Sethnakht, are all named Ramses.

The third transitional period (BC 1085 ~ 7 15 years)

The 2nd1dynasty: 65438 BC+0085 BC ~ 945 BC. In tanis, there are Daisy, Pusunas I and II. Rehor and Pinajem ruled Thebes.

Ancient Egyptian civilization refers to the period from the first waterfall of the Nile to the delta, from the Tassa culture in 5000 BC to the Arab conquest of Egypt in 642 AD.

In the 3rd century BC, Manieto divided the history of Egypt's conquest from menes to Macedonian Alexandria into thirty (or thirty-one) dynasties. Now scholars have divided the history of ancient Egypt into the following periods:

1, pre-dynasty period (about 3 100-2686 BC)

2. Early Dynasty (about 2686-2 18 1 year ago)

3. Ancient dynasty (about 265438 BC+0865438 BC+0-2040 BC)

4. the first intermediate period (about 2040- 1786 BC)

5. The Middle Ages (about BC 1786- 1567)

6. The second intermediate period; (approximately 1786- 1567)

7. the new dynasty (about BC 1567- 1085)

8. Post-dynasty period (about BC 1085-332)

9. The Rule of Greeks and Romans in Macedonia (332 BC-642 AD)

1 4, which is the period of the formation of slave countries and the emergence of the unified dynasty; The 5-7 period is the reconstruction period of the unified kingdom and empire; The eighth and ninth periods saw the decline and foreign domination of Egypt, a slave country.

To annotate ...

Experts actually explored the time range of ancient Egyptian culture, that is, the first union of the northern and southern kingdoms of Egypt in 4245 BC. By 332 AD, Alexander of Macedonia occupied Egypt, and the Ptolemy dynasty was destroyed, which is commonly known as the Pharaoh dynasty that lasted for more than 3,000 years.

[Edit this paragraph]

Ancient Egyptian characters

Egyptian characters are composed of ideographic symbols, phonetic symbols and qualifying symbols.

Ideographic symbols are used to express the meaning of words, which is characterized by the close relationship between graphics and the meaning of words. For example, drawing wavy lines represents water, and drawing a five-pointed star represents the concept of "star".

Phonetic symbols are used to express the pronunciation of words and obtain sound values. For example, if the figure of an owl is used as a note, the pronunciation [m] has lost the meaning of "owl". The graphic symbol representing the bolt represents the sound, and another symbol representing the hillside is used to represent the sound [k].

Qualifier is a new graphic symbol, which is purely ideographic and placed at the end of a word to indicate which category the word belongs to. The qualifier itself is not pronounced. For example, the notes of the words "plow stick" and "Zhu Diao" in hieroglyphics are exactly the same, both of which are composed of two consonants, pronounced hb. The way to distinguish the meaning of words is to add the limiting symbols representing "plough stick" and "Zhu Diao" after hb respectively. A complete sentence can be formed by properly combining ideographic symbols, phonetic symbols and qualifying symbols.

The evolution of ancient Egyptian characters can be divided into four stages:

1, hieroglyphics: The earliest known ancient Egyptian writing materials are hieroglyphics, which were produced in 3000 BC.

2. Tribute: For practicality and convenience, the scribe simplified the symbol shape of hieroglyphics and created a memorial.

3. Secular writing: it is a cursive form of sacrificial writing. Compared with sacrificial scripts, secular scripts have simpler link forms and no picture features, and the writing direction retains the tradition of sacrificial scripts. Fixed from right to left.

4. Coptic writing: It is the last stage of the development of ancient Egyptian writing, deeply influenced by Greek and biblical literature.

[Edit this paragraph]

Religion in ancient Egypt

Religion is the most important part of ancient Egyptian culture, which runs through the whole history of ancient Egypt. There are four most important religious centers in ancient Egypt: Heliopolis, Memphis, Hermes and Thebes.

1. The relationship between God and man

The relationship between ancient Egyptians and gods can be summarized as follows: the gods warned people what to do and what not to do; There is evil in the world because people go against God's will. Evil will be rewarded, and good will be rewarded. The ancient Egyptians believed that God's guidance was realized through the tongue and mind. Because the heart is the organ that makes decisions and plans, and the tongue makes decisions and plans public. These two organs play a decisive role in human behavior. Kidney is the guide of these two organs, so he is the helmsman of life.

2. the theory of creating the universe

The ancient Egyptians believed that the world had no beginning and no end, and the world was in chaos. After the creation and rectification of the creator, the world began to exist. The ancient Egyptians believed that everything would go round and round and the world would never change. The ancient Egyptians' view of time naturally focused on the future, because the endless world was waiting for them to enjoy.

3. The afterlife theory

The ancient Egyptians believed that life is alive, which mainly depends on two elements: one is the visible human body, and the other is the invisible soul. The shape of the soul "Ba" is a bird with a head and hands. After death, Ba is free to fly away from the body. But the body is still the basis of Pakistan's dependence. To this end, a series of complicated ceremonies should be held for the deceased, so that his various organs can play a role again, and the mummy can be resurrected and continue to live in the afterlife. The dead need a stable place to live in the afterlife. The pyramids of the ancient kingdom and the tombs dug on the hillside by the middle kingdom and the new kingdom are the permanent residences of the dead. The ancient Egyptians believed that the world was short and the afterlife was eternal.

[Edit this paragraph]

Weights and measures in ancient Egypt

The most important unit of length in ancient Egypt was the wrist ruler, which was about 20.62 inches from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. In hieroglyphics, it is represented by forearm and hand, which is pronounced meh. The wrist ruler is divided into 7 palms or 28 fingers, each palm is equal to 4 fingers. A square with a length of one cubit and a diagonal of half (29. 16 inch) is called Leimen, which can be divided into 20 fingers. It is the second unit of length and the main unit for measuring land. There is also a wrist ruler, only 17.72 inches, divided into 6 palms. The product of wrist ruler multiplied by 100 is called Arabic tea, which is the basic unit for measuring land. The square of this length, that is, 10000 square elbow, is also the unit of cultivated land area.

The main capacity unit of ancient Egyptians was Hanu, which was 29.0 0.3 cubic inches, and 65,438+00 Hanu was Hagardt. On the basis of quality classification, various multiplication operations are carried out to form a larger particle volume unit. Another unit of capacity is the card, which is equal to 2/3 cubic cubits, or equivalent to the capacity of a container with a diameter of 9 palms and a depth of 1 elbow. There is a certain approximate relationship between capacity and water, because a Hanu's water weighs 5 debens. It seems that the unit of capacity is derived from the unit of weight of water. Deben is the weight of an ankle ornament with the same name, and its110 is called Gardet, which is the weight of the ring.

[Edit this paragraph]

mother

Mummies are well-preserved bodies after special treatment. In more than 3000 years, many changes have taken place in the way ancient Egyptians made mummies. However, most scholars and experts believe that the anti-corrosion method reached its peak around 10 century BC. At that time, the first-class embalmers gathered together to make mummies according to the following steps: first, a 10 cm long incision was made on the left side of the abdomen of the corpse with a flint knife, and all the internal organs except the heart were taken out from the incision (the embalmer and his customers thought that the heart was the root of feelings), and they were washed one by one with wine and spices containing myrrh and cinnamon. The embalmer also washed the abdominal cavity of the corpse with aromatic asphalt to decompose the remaining soft tissue, and then prepared to remove the brain. He used a hooked tool to penetrate into the skull from the nostril of the deceased, hooked off the brain marrow inside, and then poured aromatic asphalt and spices to rush out the residual tissue in the skull.

After every part of the body was thoroughly cleaned, the embalmer buried all organs and corpses in a pile of powder soaked in alkali (a mixture of sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate) to drain water. Bodies and organs should be buried in alkaline powder for about a month, and then washed with perfume and spices. Every step of embalming the corpse from beginning to end, the embalming personnel must be serious, such as wrapping every finger of the corpse from the beginning to avoid nail damage or falling off.

Then, the antiseptic wrapped the dry viscera one by one with linen, put them back into the abdominal cavity (or put them in a clay pot or gypsum pot alone) and filled the abdominal cavity with fillers such as sawdust, linen, tar or mud. After filling, the incision will be stitched immediately. Because soaking alkali has damaged some hair, it is necessary to repair some wigs and braid them with real hair that has not been taken off; I also need an artificial eye in my eye socket. At this time, the remaining work is to restore the appearance of the body, which is also the most time-consuming, because it is not easy to restore the withered body to its original appearance. During this ancient plastic surgery, the embalmer carefully cut many tiny incisions in various parts of the body and filled the skin with linen fillers shaped according to the body contour, just like plastic surgeons injected silicone into the living in the 20th century. Even the face and neck of the corpse are as good as before, and the mouth is stuffed with linen to make the cheeks full. Finally, the antiseptic also acts as a makeup artist, using a colored clay called ochre to color the face and even the whole body of the deceased (the male deceased is dyed red and the female deceased is dyed yellow). You can wrap your body after dyeing. The embalmer wrapped the limbs of the corpse layer by layer with linen cloth coated with rosin, then wrapped the head and trunk, and finally wrapped the whole body. This parcel is slow and time-consuming. Now several mummies have been untied, and the total length of the cloth is more than two kilometers! The embalmer wrapped the body and made it into a mummy, which took about 70 days before and after. Follow the embalmer to return the mummy to undertaker. By this time, undertaker had probably prepared another human coffin to hold the mummy and built a grave.

The whole mummification process is expensive, except for various drugs, spices, evil spirits, amulets and so on. , only wrapped in a corpse, sometimes with 1000 meters of high quality linen. Therefore, only kings, royalty, nobles and the rich can afford it, and the poor can only be simple and even sloppy. Herodotus talked about two other cheaper mummification methods. Although it is difficult to ensure physical integrity, it can give spiritual comfort to the poor. Moreover, perhaps it is because of these cheap mummification methods that the tradition of mummification can be spread and continued. It was not until the 4th century AD that Christianity ruled Egypt that the custom of mummies was abolished.

There was a group of people in ancient Egypt who made mummies as their profession. They have mastered this technology and passed it on from generation to generation. In ancient Egypt, mummification and related necessities undoubtedly formed a very important and large-scale industrial system. The existence of this industry shows that ancient Egyptians have mastered scientific knowledge in physics, chemistry and medicine. The sodium oxide they used as a desiccant was a mixture of sodium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate, salt and sodium sulfide according to modern scientific analysis, indicating that the chemical action of these substances was known at that time.