The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt

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This may be a popular history, but Wilkinson also writes in academia, and knows his stuff – the bibliography provides every possible authoritative work that a reader might wish for to engage in further study of the topics presented, and, as a new publication with a professional academic for an author, the book is tightly researched and up-to-date. In a bit of a glass-half-full-or-glass-half-empty situation, there were certain areas where I felt like Wilkinson provided only an overview and I wanted to know more, but on the other hand at other times Wilkinson provided me with all sorts of new information and interpretations – this is a bit of a unique situation to me though, creating the false impression of patchiness in the book, since the areas I felt were a little bit skimmed and wanted to know more about were areas of my specialist study. Some parts were quite exciting, beginning from the 18th dynasty, the reign of Amenhotep, and the heretic king Akhenaten, and the glorious reign of Rameses III, and the rule of Lybians and Persians. The Ptolemies would have been quite good too, if I have not already known how much better the story actually was. The 19th Dynasty continued the successes of the 18th but, during the 20th Dynasty, the empire began to decline. Ramesses II and his successor, Merenptah (1213-1203 BCE) had both defeated invasions by the Sea Peoples – a coalition of different tribes who were responsible for weakening and destroying a number of civilizations at this time – but had not crippled their power. In the 20th Dynasty, under the reign of Ramesses III, the Sea Peoples returned in force and the king had no choice but to mobilize his army and mount a defense.

The Middle Kingdom (2040-1782 BCE) during the 12th Dynasty is considered Egypt's “golden age” when cultural and artistic achievements reached their height. During the 13th Dynasty, however, the kings were weaker and more concerned with their own pursuits and court intrigues than the good of the country. During this time, the Hyksos were able to establish themselves at Avaris in Lower Egypt and steadily consolidated their presence until they were able to wield significant political- and military power. The Middle Kingdom fell as the Egyptian central government grew weaker and both the Hyksos in the north and the Nubians in the south grew stronger, initiating the Second Intermediate Period. It only survived for about a century thanks to a full-fledged invasion that came through the Sinai peninsula and the modern-day Israel/Palestine area — the ‘Hyksos’. The New Kingdom (ca 1550–ca 1069 BCE):

Mentuhotep III and Mentuhotep IV succeeded the king. It is believed that Amenemhet I took power over IV in a bloody coup and founded the twelfth dynasty around 1985 BCE.

The Harifian culture migrated out of the Fayyum and the Eastern deserts of Egypt to merge with the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B; this created the Circum-Arabian Nomadic Pastoral Complex, who invented nomadic pastoralism, and may have spread Proto-Semitic language throughout Mesopotamia. The Neolithic What’s worse, he attributes everything, especially worship of the king as living god, to the pharaoh’s drive to cement their despotic power. Yes, Egypt’s kings were absolute rulers, and yes, their monuments and religion supported this. But there is no need to attach this to everything. The words “propaganda” and “power” are in every second sentence. It gets tiresome. So tiresome that I considered abandoning the book around 20-30% in, as this was the worst in the old Kingdom parts. But with the arrival of the 18th dynasty and the New Kingdom, the narrative became more lively, perhaps because we have more information about the personalities of the era. Although at the surface the country was united, in reality, the north was ruled from Tanis (or perhaps Memphis) in the Nile Delta, and lower Egypt was ruled from Thebes. A formal frontier between the regions was established at Teudjoi, the entrance to the Fayyum Oasis. The central government at Thebes was essentially a theocracy, with supreme political authority resting with the god Amun. For over a century from the year 1650 BCE the Egyptians fought to re-conquer their land taken by the Hyksos. The fifteenth dynasty was ruled from Avaris and ruled by a Hyksos whose name was Salitis.The El Omari culture (4000-3100 BCE) lived near modern-day Cairo. People lived in huts, and had undecorated pottery and stone tools. Metal was unknown.