The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt

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All Upper Egypt was dying of hunger, to such an extent that everyone has come to eating his children ... The entire country had become starved like a starved grasshopper, with people going to the north and to the south (in search of grain). (Al-Baghdadi, a physician / scholar from Baghad) For example, the mummy of Ramses V appears to have smallpox scars on his face. While historians can’t be sure if he actually died from smallpox, records indicate that Ramses V and his family were buried in newly dug tombs, and also that there was a six-month moratorium on anyone visiting the Valley of the Kings after the burials. The second time under Persian rule only lasted about a decade. The year 332 BCE, the young Macedonian leader Alexander the Great invaded and established it as a part of his enormous empire. He was crowned Pharaoh. It founded what is called the Ptolemaic period. Before leaving to conquer the rest of the Persian Empire, he founded the city of Alexandria at the Mediterranean coast. Alexandria soon became Egypt’s capital. Economic factors also contributed to the fall of ancient Egypt. Like many nations that end up losing power, economic disparity in ancient Egypt pushed everyday citizens to their limit. The fifth dynasty started after Shepseskaf, it is unclear what happened, but we do know that Userkaf took power and founded the dynasty. Because of this most king stopped want to build these gigantic monuments, focusing more on smaller ones. Another thing built around Abusir was sun temples — a phenomenon special to this dynasty.

Once the Kushite kings took over, that was really the end of Egypt as an independent power,” says Cline. “Then the Assyrians came in, followed by the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans and then Islam. If you're talking about ancient Egypt being a power unto itself and being ruled by Egyptians, it was never the same again.” Yet if this was reason enough for the failure of Egyptian writers to indulge in the kind of salacious detail that the Greeks and the Romans so relished, then there was also a broader cultural explanation. A blurring of the individual with the universal lay at the very heart of Egyptian ideology. Pharaoh himself was regarded less as a man than as an expression of the divine. Even those of non-royal birth came to dream of an afterlife in which they would lead an idealised version of their mortal existence. This was why art, for instance, invariably dealt in generalisations – and panglossian ones at that. No one in a tomb relief was ever shown with the worn gums endemic in a land where food was invariably seasoned with sand. Akhenaten's successor was Tutankhamun (1336-1327 BCE) who was in the process of restoring Egypt to its former status when he died young. His work was completed by Horemheb (1320-1295 BCE) who erased Akhenaten's name from history and destroyed his city. Horemheb succeeded in restoring Egypt but it was nowhere near the strength it had been prior to Akhenaten's reign. Two further transformative factors now came into play. Christianity began spreading through Egypt and it brought with the Greek alphabet. Their new religion brought a halt to many ancient social practices such as the old religion and mummification. This had a profound effect on Egyptian culture. While Harihur was seen as royal, it was Smedes who founded Egypt’s twenty-first dynasty. Nubia became independent once more during this time. Decline and Fall (ca 1,069–641 BCE):Despite this, their biggest problem was the unstable Nile River. It often overflooded, something which killed a lot of the plantations and destroyed houses built too close to the water, while too little flooding meant famine, usually. The age of the Pyramids (ca. 2,686–2,181 BCE): Tuthmosis was followed by his son Tuthmosis II. He married his half-sister Hatschepsut, with whom he had a daughter. His only son was also named Tuthmosis. After a number of short years, with his son still underage, Tuthmosis II died. Pharaoh Tuthmosis III, therefore, had 20 years in front of him without practically no real power. In his stead, Hatschepsut established herself as both the mother of the Pharaoh and daughter of Amun — making her a kind of female Horus. Egypt during her governance prospered, but when the Pharaoh finally received power — either through force or his mother’s death — he made major efforts to delete his predecessor’s impact.

The rulers of the seventh and eighth dynasties continued to rule from Memphis and kept Saqqara as one of the most important necropolises in Egypt.Teti, who founded the sixth dynasty, married one of Unas’ daughters. Somehow — probably by just becoming Unas’ heir — he took the power after his father-in-law. It is said that Teti himself was then murdered, leading to a brief rule by Userkare, before Teti’s son Pepi I taking power. It is believed to have been a kind of coup. Despite this, while what they built might be seen as beautiful by most people, their biggest accomplishment was about death. The third dynasty started the tradition of building pyramids as graves.