A History of Egypt: From the Pharaohs to the Present

The history of Egypt runs to about 5,000 years of written records, and almost all of it happened on a narrow green strip beside the Nile. The pharaohs ruled for about three thousand of those years. After them came Greek kings, Roman governors, Coptic bishops, caliphs, sultans and modern presidents, and each left buildings that still stand. Cleopatra lived closer in time to the moon landing than to the building of the Great Pyramid.

For a visitor, the sequence matters. Luxor Temple, for example, was built mainly by Amenhotep III and enlarged by Ramesses II. Alexander the Great added a shrine, the Romans turned it into an army camp, and a medieval mosque is still in use on top of it. Knowing roughly which period you are standing in turns a blur of columns and carvings into a story. This overview takes Egypt’s history period by period, with the places where you can still see each one. For how those places fit into one trip, our Egypt itinerary guide sets out the route day by day.

Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt (to c. 2686 BC)

Egypt from space: the green ribbon of the Nile valley opening into the delta, where nearly all of the country’s history took place.

By about 5000 BC, farmers were growing wheat and barley along the Nile. Each summer the river flooded and left black silt on the fields, and the Egyptians called their land Kemet, “the black land”. Over the next two thousand years, villages in the south grew into small kingdoms with chiefs, temples and richly furnished graves.

Around 3000 BC, Upper Egypt (the Nile valley) and Lower Egypt (the delta) were united under one king. Later tradition called him Menes, and most historians identify him with Narmer, whose carved slate palette shows a king wearing the crowns of both lands. Memphis, just south of modern Cairo, became the capital, and hieroglyphic writing was already in use.

Where to see it: the early galleries of the Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza and the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo, which lays out the whole sequence from the earliest settlements to today. Elephantine Island at Aswan has some of the oldest remains in Egypt.

The Old Kingdom: the pyramid age (c. 2686–2160 BC)

Around 2650 BC the architect Imhotep built a tomb for King Djoser at Saqqara by stacking six stone platforms, each smaller than the one below. It was the first monumental building made entirely of stone (see our article on the Step Pyramid of Djoser). Within a century, King Sneferu’s builders had mastered the true, smooth-sided pyramid. His son Khufu then built the Great Pyramid at Giza, about 146 metres high when it was finished around 2560 BC. It remained the tallest human-made structure in the world for nearly four thousand years.

The pyramids of Giza, built for Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure in the Fourth Dynasty, with smaller queens’ pyramids in front.

Khafre and Menkaure added the other two pyramids and, most likely under Khafre, the Great Sphinx (see our guide to the Pyramids and the Sphinx). The excavated workers’ town at Giza shows an organised, fed and housed workforce rather than slaves. From about 2350 BC, burial chambers were carved with the Pyramid Texts, among the oldest religious texts in the world. Towards the end of the period royal power weakened, provincial governors grew independent, and low Nile floods brought famine.

Where to see it: the Step Pyramid at Saqqara; the pyramids, the Valley Temple and the Sphinx at Giza; and Old Kingdom statues in Cairo’s museums.

The First Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdom (c. 2160–1650 BC)

After the Old Kingdom collapsed, rival rulers at Herakleopolis and Thebes divided the country until the Theban king Mentuhotep II reunited it around 2040 BC. The Twelfth Dynasty that followed was one of the most stable in Egyptian history. Its kings developed the farmland of the Faiyum and built mud-brick forts in Nubia, and the period produced literature, such as the Tale of Sinuhe, that later Egyptians treated as classics.

This is also when Karnak, the temple of Amun at Thebes, began. One of its oldest buildings is the finely carved White Chapel of Senusret I, rebuilt from blocks found inside a later gateway. Senusret I also raised the obelisk that still stands at Matariya, in north-east Cairo, on the site of ancient Heliopolis. At nearly 4,000 years old, it is the oldest obelisk in Egypt still standing where it was raised.

Where to see it: Karnak, whose story starts here, and Middle Kingdom statues and jewellery in Cairo’s museums.

The Second Intermediate Period and the New Kingdom (c. 1650–1069 BC)

From about 1650 BC, rulers from the Near East known as the Hyksos controlled the north from the delta. Around 1550 BC the Theban king Ahmose drove them out and began the New Kingdom, Egypt’s imperial age. Its armies reached the Euphrates, and its wealth paid for the great monuments of Luxor, which the Greeks called Thebes.

The Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak, built by Seti I and Ramesses II, has 134 columns carved with hieroglyphs and scenes of the kings before the gods.

On the East Bank, Karnak was enlarged by almost every king of the period, and Luxor Temple was built mainly by Amenhotep III and Ramesses II. On the West Bank, kings were buried in rock-cut tombs in the Valley of the Kings, with memorial temples on the edge of the farmland. The most striking is the terraced Temple of Hatshepsut, built for a woman who ruled as king (c. 1473–1458 BC). The craftsmen who cut and painted the royal tombs lived in their own village, and the letters, lists and complaints they left make Deir el-Medina one of the best-documented communities of the ancient world.

Akhenaten (c. 1352–1336 BC) abandoned Amun and the other gods for the sun disc, the Aten. His probable son Tutankhamun restored the old religion and died young, and his small tomb, found almost intact by Howard Carter in 1922, made him the best-known pharaoh of all. Ramesses II (c. 1279–1213 BC) reigned for 66 years and built from the delta to Nubia, most memorably at Abu Simbel, where four seated figures of the king, each about 20 metres high, are cut into the cliff. In the 29th year of Ramesses III (c. 1157 BC), the tomb workers of Deir el-Medina stopped work over late grain rations, the first recorded strike in history. Within a few generations, the royal tombs were being robbed.

Where to see it: Karnak and Luxor Temple; the Valley of the Kings (including Tutankhamun’s tomb), Deir el-Medina and the Temple of Hatshepsut; Abu Simbel and the Lake Nasser temples. Ramesses II and other New Kingdom rulers now lie in the Royal Mummies Gallery at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization.

The Third Intermediate Period and the Late Period (1069–332 BC)

After the New Kingdom, power was divided again, between kings in the delta and the priests of Amun at Thebes. Libyan families held the throne for two centuries, and in the eighth century BC the kings of Kush, in today’s Sudan, conquered Egypt and ruled it as the Twenty-fifth Dynasty. Their rule effectively ended when the Assyrians sacked Thebes in 663 BC. Psamtik I (664–610 BC), a prince from Sais in the delta, reunited the country and began a revival of Old Kingdom art. The Persians conquered Egypt in 525 BC. Native rule returned briefly, but Nectanebo II, the last native Egyptian pharaoh, lost the country to Persia again in 343 BC.

Psamtik I made the news in March 2017. An Egyptian and German team working in Matariya, a crowded district of Cairo over ancient Heliopolis, the city of the sun god Ra, lifted the head and part of the torso of a huge quartzite statue out of waterlogged ground. It was first reported as Ramesses II, but within days one of Psamtik I’s names was found carved on its back pillar. Estimated at eight to nine metres tall when complete, it is thought to be the largest statue of the Late Period yet found, and it was taken to the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square for conservation.

Where to see it: the gateway kiosk of Nectanebo I, the oldest building at Philae, and Late Period statues in Cairo’s museums.

Ptolemaic Egypt (332–30 BC)

Alexander the Great took Egypt from the Persians in 332 BC and founded Alexandria the following year. After his death his general Ptolemy took Egypt, and Ptolemy’s descendants ruled it for three centuries. Alexandria became the intellectual capital of the Greek world, with its Great Library and the Pharos lighthouse. The modern Bibliotheca Alexandrina, opened in 2002, stands near the old royal quarter.

A nineteenth-century engraving imagining ancient Alexandria, the capital of the Ptolemies.

The Ptolemies spoke Greek, but in the Nile valley they presented themselves as pharaohs and built temples to the Egyptian gods. These are among the best-preserved temples in Egypt: Edfu, built for Horus between 237 and 57 BC; the double temple of Sobek and Horus the Elder at Kom Ombo; the temple of Hathor at Dendera, begun in 54 BC; and the temple of Isis at Philae. A priestly decree of 196 BC was carved in hieroglyphs, demotic and Greek, and one copy, the Rosetta Stone, later made it possible to read hieroglyphs again.

Kom Ombo, a Ptolemaic temple above the Nile dedicated to two gods, with a double entrance and twin sanctuaries.

The last of the line was Cleopatra VII (51–30 BC), said by Plutarch to be the first of her dynasty to learn Egyptian. Her alliances with Julius Caesar and then Mark Antony were an attempt to keep Egypt independent of Rome (see Caesar and Cleopatra in Egypt). After their defeat at Actium in 31 BC, she took her own life in Alexandria. On the back wall of the temple at Dendera she is carved as an Egyptian queen beside Caesarion, her son by Caesar.

Where to see it: Dendera, Edfu, Kom Ombo and Philae on the Nile, and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria.

Roman and Byzantine (Coptic) Egypt (30 BC–AD 641)

Augustus made Egypt a Roman province under his personal control, and for centuries its grain fed Rome. Emperors were carved on temple walls dressed as pharaohs, and the temple at Kalabsha, now moved to a site near the Aswan High Dam, was built under Augustus. In Alexandria, the Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa, a second-century AD tomb complex, show the city’s mixed culture: the jackal god Anubis is carved there in Roman armour.

Christianity reached Egypt early, and the Egyptian desert produced the first Christian monks. As the empire became Christian, the temples closed one by one. The last known hieroglyphic inscription was carved at Philae in AD 394, and Philae was among the last temples to close. The Coptic Church, whose liturgy still uses the last form of the ancient Egyptian language, split from Constantinople after 451. In Old Cairo, the walls of the Roman fortress of Babylon still stand, and the Hanging Church was built over its gatehouse.

Where to see it: Kom el Shoqafa and the Roman Amphitheatre in Alexandria; Kalabsha; and the Hanging Church and Old Coptic Church in Old Cairo.

Islamic Egypt: Fustat, Fatimid Cairo, the Mamluks and the Ottomans (641–1798)

An Arab army under Amr ibn al-As entered Egypt in 639, and by 642 the Byzantines had gone. Amr founded a new capital, Fustat, beside the fortress of Babylon, and his mosque there was the first in Egypt. Over the following centuries most Egyptians became Muslim and Arabic replaced Coptic, though a large Coptic Christian community remains. In 969 the Fatimids built a walled royal city to the north and called it al-Qahira, “the Victorious”, which gave Cairo its name, and founded al-Azhar, still a leading centre of Islamic learning.

The Mamluk mosque-madrasa of Sultan Hassan (1356–1363) and the al-Rifa’i Mosque, completed in 1912, below the Citadel in Cairo.

Saladin ended Fatimid rule in 1171 and began the Citadel. From 1250 to 1517 Egypt was ruled by the Mamluks, an elite of former slave soldiers who defeated the Mongols and filled Cairo with mosques, madrasas and markets, including the Khan el-Khalili bazaar. In Alexandria, Sultan Qaitbay built a fortress on the ruins of the Pharos. In 1517 Egypt became a province of the Ottoman Empire.

Where to see it: Old Cairo and the Ben Ezra Synagogue; the Citadel; the medieval quarter of Islamic Cairo, a World Heritage Site (our guide to discovering Cairo covers it); and the Qaitbay Citadel in Alexandria.

Modern Egypt (1798 to today)

The Mosque of Muhammad Ali, begun in 1830 in the Ottoman style, in the Cairo Citadel.

Napoleon’s invasion of 1798 lasted only three years, but the scholars who came with him produced the Description de l’Égypte, which launched the modern study of ancient Egypt, and his soldiers found the Rosetta Stone. Muhammad Ali, an Ottoman officer, took power in 1805 and set out to modernise the country; his Alabaster Mosque crowns the Citadel. The Suez Canal opened in 1869, but the debts behind it led to British occupation in 1882. Egypt became formally independent in 1922, the year Tutankhamun’s tomb was found.

In 1952 army officers overthrew the monarchy, and Egypt became a republic the following year. Under Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Aswan High Dam was built in the 1960s, ending the annual flood and creating Lake Nasser, and a UNESCO campaign moved Abu Simbel and other Nubian temples above the rising water. Today Egypt has well over 100 million people, a new administrative capital rising east of Cairo (see Egypt’s capital cities), and two major new museums: the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization and the Grand Egyptian Museum, fully opened in 2025.

Where to see it: the Mosque of Muhammad Ali, the Aswan High Dam and the relocated temples of Lake Nasser.

Seeing Egypt’s history on a small group tour

Our Ancient History & Culture of Egypt tour is an 18-day journey from Cairo to Cairo for mature travellers, in a small group of up to 16, and solo travellers are welcome. After arrival in Cairo, the first full day is spent at the Grand Egyptian Museum, then the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, Old Cairo and the Muhammad Ali Mosque in the Citadel, and a day at Saqqara and Giza with a qualified Egyptologist.

We then fly to Luxor for Luxor Temple, Karnak, the Valley of the Kings, Deir el-Medina and the Temple of Hatshepsut. After Dendera, a Nile cruise to Aswan takes in Edfu, Kom Ombo, the High Dam and Philae. From Aswan we travel by coach to Abu Simbel and board a Lake Nasser cruise that sails north past Amada and Wadi el-Seboua to Kalabsha. We fly back to Cairo, then spend two days in Alexandria for the Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa, the Roman Amphitheatre, the Qaitbay Citadel and a stop at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, before returning to Cairo for a farewell dinner.

Practical questions

How long does the history of Egypt span?

About 5,000 years of recorded history, from the unification of the country around 3000 BC to the present, with several thousand years of farming villages before that. The age of the pharaohs alone, from the First Dynasty to Cleopatra’s death in 30 BC, lasted about 3,000 years.

Which periods of Egyptian history does the tour cover?

All of them, with the emphasis on the pharaohs. Saqqara and Giza cover the Old Kingdom; Luxor and Abu Simbel the New Kingdom; Dendera, Edfu, Kom Ombo and Philae the Ptolemaic and Roman periods; Alexandria the Greco-Roman city; and Old Cairo and the Citadel the Coptic, Islamic and modern periods. The two big museums fill the gaps, including the Middle Kingdom, which has fewer standing monuments.

Where can I see the whole of Egyptian history in one place?

At the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat, Old Cairo, whose main hall moves from prehistory through the pharaonic, Coptic and Islamic periods to the modern era. The Grand Egyptian Museum covers the pharaonic and Greco-Roman periods in greater depth, including the complete Tutankhamun collection. Seeing both early in a trip, as our itinerary does, gives you a framework for the sites that follow.

Do I need to know the history before I go?

No, but a little reading helps. Guides explain each site, and knowing the order of the periods above and a few names, such as Khufu, Hatshepsut and Ramesses II, makes their stories easier to follow. The tour is graded Level 2 (moderate), with three to five hours of activity a day, with stairs to climb and walking of up to 8 kilometres on uneven ground.