Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
CHAPTER ONE
The Geography of Egypt
The River
The Annual Inundation
Arable Land and Agriculture
Foodstocks
Demography
Eastern and Western Deserts
The Coast East and West of the Delta
Further Readings
CHAPTER TWO
The Foundations: The Prehistory of Egypt
The Appearance of Man
The Agricultural Revolution
The Sedentary Community in Ancient Egypt
Belief Systems in Prehistoric Egypt
A Selection of Egyptian Towns and Deities
Understanding the World: Mythic Narrative
Further Readings
CHAPTER THREE
The Advent of Complex Society and the Rise of the Pharaonic State
The Naqada II Period and the End of the Neolithic
Egypt and the “Uruk Phenomenon”
The Rise of the First Dynasty
The Creation of a Civil Service and the Mechanisms of Government
Government Archives
“The Hermeneutic of Horus”: The Creation of a Royal Mythology
The Nascent State: Expansion and Reaction
Further Reading
CHAPTER FOUR
The Third and Fourth Dynasties: The High Old Kingdom
The Worship of the Ancestors and Mortuary Economics
The Evolution of the Tomb and the Monument of Djoser
Advances in Pyramid Construction
The Fourth Dynasty: The Apogee of Royal Power
Pharaoh’s Government
Social Class and the Reward System
Pharaoh’s Sphere of Foreign Influence
Artificial Consistency in the Belief System: Syncretism
The King as Perfect god and Man
The Cult of the Sun-God Re
The Royal Mortuary Temple
The Pyramid Texts
Further Readings
CHAPTER FIVE
The Collapse of the Old Kingdom and the Regime of Herakleopolis
Township and Manor
The Downsizing of the State
The Collapse
The Social Phenomenon of the “Common Man”
Magic and the Coffin Texts
Osiris, the Hypostasis of Fertility and Salvation
The Civil War
The Theban Eleventh Dynasty
Further Reading
CHAPTER SIX
The Middle Kingdom
Amenemhet I: The Beginnings of Reform
The Writing School
The Literature of Persuasion
The Reorganization of Egypt
The Reign of Amenemhet III
The Twelfth Dynasty and the External World
Further Readings
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Decline of the Middle Kingdom and the Hyksos Conquest
The Downsizing of the State
Relations with Western Asia
The Hyksos
The Hyksos in Later Tradition
Further Readings
CHAPTER EIGHT
“. . . With Their Tribute on Their Backs” The Rise of the Egyptian Empire
The War of Liberation: The Seventeenth Dynasty
The Early Eighteenth Dynasty: Spiritual Heirs to the Middle Kingdom
The Coming of the Indo-Europeans
Empire or Retrenchment?
The Matriarchal Regency of Hatshepsut
The Conquests of Thutmose III
The Annihilation of Kush and the Creation of an African Empire
The Provinces of Asia and Kush: A Contrast in Administration
Cultural Exchange during the Empire of the Eighteenth Dynasty
Further Readings
CHAPTER NINE
Monarchy in Crisis
The Reign of Amenophis III
The God Amun and His Cult
Akhenaten: The Man
The Early Years at Thebes
The New City of Amarna: “The Horizon of the Sun Disk”
Further Readings
CHAPTER TEN
The Reaction against Egypt and the Hittite War
The Hittite Threat to Syria
The End of the Eighteenth Dynasty
The Army Assumes Power
The Accession of Ramesses II, “The Great”
The Resumption of Hostilities with the Hittites
The Egypto-Hittite Entente
Further Readings
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Life and Times of Ramesses the Great
The Royal House of the Nineteenth Dynasty
Government Officials and the Grandees of the Realm (l–m)
The Professional Scribes
The Professional Priesthood (n–o)
The Army
Workers, Peasants, and P.O.W.s: The Demographics of Empire
Landholding and Taxation
Law during the New Kingdom
Family Life
A Day in the Life of
The “Literature” of the New Kingdom
Further Readings
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Decline of the New Kingdom (Dyn. 20–21)
Keftiu and the Hau-nebu
International Trade and Exchange
The End of the Nineteenth Dynasty
Piracy and the “Sea Peoples”
Economic Hardship and Social Protest
The Dynastic Succession of the Twentieth Dynasty
The Priesthood of Amun and the Army
The Tanite Period: The De Facto Division of Egypt
Further Readings
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Libyan Kings (Dyn. 22–24)
The Meshwesh
Egypt and Asia in the Iron Age
The Revolt of Thebes
The Decline of Libyan Hegemony
Egyptian Society in the Eighth Century BC
Further Readings
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Evolution of the Belief System of Egypt from the End of the New Kingdom to Christian Times
The Syncretism of the Amun Theology
Animal Worship
The Personal Piety of the Masses
Sickness and Prophylactic
Trial after Death
The Afterlife: A Pessimistic View
Reward and Punishment
The Invention of Heaven and Hell
The Island with No Name
Further Readings
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Kush, Assyria, and the Struggle for Egypt
The Rise of Independent Kush
The Assyrian Threat and the Consolidation of the Delta
The Kushite Hold on Egypt (712–664 BC)
The Twenty-fifth Dynasty and Assyrian Expansion
Further Readings
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Spirit of Sais: The Twenty-sixth Dynasty
A Note on Sources for Saïte History
The Triumph of Psamtek
The Reunification of the Two Lands
The Central Government and the Saïte Court
The Restoration of Provincial Administration
The Reorganization of the Armed Forces
Fiscal Controls and Commerce
The Reassurance of Antiquity
The Community of Proto-philosophic Thought
Further Readings
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Egypt in the World of the Persian Empire
The Persian Conquest of 525 BC
Egypt under Cambyses and Darius I
Persian Administration
The Denigration of the Monarch and the Folklore of Deliverance
The Last Period of Political Independence: Dynasties 28–30
The Last Persian Conquest of Egypt
Further Readings
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“No Longer Masters of Their Own House”: Egypt under the Ptolemies
The Arrival in Egypt of Alexander the Great
A Note on Sources
The Government of the Ptolemies
The Ideology of Kingship
The Egyptian Temples under the Ptolemies
Race Relations between Egyptian and Greeks
Egypt under the Roman Empire
Egypt’s Spiritual Bequest to the Roman World
Ancient Egypt in the Writings of Classical Authors
The Impact of Christianity
APPENDIX I
Textual Sources for Egyptian History
Our Sources for the Old Kingdom
Our Sources for the First Intermediate Period
The Middle Kingdom
The New Kingdom
The Period of Libyan Hegemony
The Kushite, Saïte, and Persian Periods
APPENDIX II
Basis of Our Chronology
APPENDIX III
The King List
INDE
