Client Testimonials:

'The safari experience was awesome. Everything went perfectly as planned to our great satisfaction. I am in love with Africa. Thank you so much".
Pam Wright, L.A., USA

Travel Articles > Egypt Articles

Ancient Egypt

There are days when the sand blows ceaselessly, blanketing the remains of a powerful dynasty that ruled Egypt 5,000 years ago. When the wind dies down and the sands are still, a long shadow casts a wedge of darkness across the Sahara, creeping ever longer as the north African sun sinks beyond the horizon.

This is where our history of Egypt begins, in the shadow of the Great Pyramid of Giza, where stone meets sky as a testament to one of the greatest civilizations on earth. Here, on the plateau of Giza, 2,300,000 blocks of stone, some weighing as much as 9 tons, were used to build an eternal tomb for a divine king.

Five thousand years ago, the fourth dynasty of Egypt's Old Kingdom was a highly advanced civilization where the kings, known as pharaohs, were believed to be gods. They lived amidst palaces and temples built to honor them and their deified ancestors. "Pharaoh" originally meant "great house," but later came to mean king. What we know of this early society changes and is re-intepreted year by year as new archaeological finds discovered beneath the desert sands revise our understanding of ancient Egypt. This web site will show you science in action -- bringing you face to face with the evidence archaeologists use to understand the meaning of Giza's pyramids, and to the process of evaluating the finds they will uncover beneath the sands of the plateau.

Before looking closely at pharaonic society and the beginning of the Pyramid Age, one first has to step into Egypt's landscape and take a look around. Ancient Egyptians called their land "Kemet," which meant "black," after the black fertile silt-layered soil that was left behind each year during the annual innundation, when the Nile flooded the fields. The most prevalent color of the desert, however, is a decidedly reddish-yellow ochre.

The Egyptians called the desert "deshret," meaning "red," and this endless carpet of sand covers an estimated 95 % of Egypt, interrupted only by the narrow band of green carved by the waters of the Nile. Here, the extreme dry sands of the desert meet the fertile silt-laden soils along the Nile -- a river that provides a source of life for the entire nation and a good part of the African continent.

Our history of Egypt begins around the year 3,000 BC with the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt into one united kingdom. Under this new ruling dynasty, the first King was Menes, and thirty dynasties would follow. It was at this time that hieroglyphic writing made its first appearance, in the tombs and treasures of the pharaohs. To seal the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, Menes founded the capital city of the kingdom at the place where the two met: at the apex of the Nile, where it fans out onto the fertile silt plain.

The fortress city was named "White Walls" by Menes, but it is known today by its Greek name, Memphis. For much of the 3,000 years of ancient Egypt, it remained the capital seat of the pharaohs. Only 20 miles to the north of Memphis is the modern capitol, Cairo, still situated near the juncture of the Nile valley and the delta.

How does the pyramid fit into early Egyptian life? Pyramids today stand as a reminder of the ancient Egyptian glorification of life after death, and in fact, the pyramids were built as monuments to house the tombs of the pharaohs. Death was seen as merely the beginning of a journey to the other world. In this society, each individual's eternal life was dependent on the continued existence of their king, a belief that made the pharaoh's tomb the concern of the entire kingdom.

Pictures on the walls of tombs tell us about the lives of the Kings and their families. We know pyramids were built during a king's lifetime because heiroglyphs on tomb walls have been found depicting the names of the gangs who built the pyramids for their kings. Furniture and riches were buried with the king so he would have the familiar comforts of his lifetime buried near him. Attendants and wives who died after the king were also buried close to him.

These graves of relatives and courtiers can be found on the outskirts of kings' tombs, lying beside the pyramids. Whole subdivisions of tombs of those in high positions in the court of a king can be found surrounding the pyramids of Giza. These are primarily mastabas, or covered rectangular tombs that consist of a deep burial shaft, made of mud brick and half-buried by the drifts of sand on the plateau.

The first pyramid was the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, built for King Zoser in 2750 BC. This first application of large scale technology, however, is often attributed to Imhotep, the architect of the Step Pyramid. He was not a pharaoh, but was the Director of Works of Upper and Lower Egypt. The superstructure of the pyramid was made of small limestone blocks and desert clay. Inside, the burial chamber and storage spaces for Zoser's grave goods were carved out of the earth and rock beneath the structure. Imhotep's intent was to mimic the basic structure of King Zoser's palatial home in the burial chamber. The tomb, like those that followed, was meant to be a replica of the royal palace. In early tombs, the central area was always the burial place.

The other surrounding rooms contained burial artifacts such as furniture and jewelry and other provisions owned by the king. False doors of heavy stone, inscribed with heiroglyphs, represented passageways between rooms. There were no real doors between the rooms, because it was believed the king would be able to move about his rooms, in the afterlife, without the help of structural passageways.

It was only 150 years later, in the fourth dynasty of Egypt's Old Kingdom, that King Khufu commissioned the building of the largest pyramid of all, the Great Pyramid, which is the last remaining wonder of the Seven Wonders of the World. It is thought that in 816 AD Caliph al-Mamun first ordered workers to blast through the blocked stone entrance in order to explore within Khufu's pyramid. But looters, probably from dynastic Egyptian times, had already absconded with King Khufu's burial treasures and his body.

This is true of all of the pyramids at Giza, so very little is known about Khufu or any of his successors who were buried at Giza. Archaeologists, nonetheless, continue to look for pieces of this puzzle to further our understanding of the Pyramid Age and the pharaohs that ruled Egypt.

View our discount Egypt Vacation Tours

Have you gone on vacation to Africa and would like to share your experiences with others on this site? If yes please contact us today by clicking here and we will gladly contact you with instructions on how to submit your article.