TimeMaps

Egypt
2500BC

Within the long, narrow valley of the river Nile, powerful chiefdoms fought and conquered each other in the centuries leading up to 3000 BC, until one emerged to cover the entire land. Thus was founded the "Old Kingdom" of Ancient Egypt.

The kingdom is governed by a ruling class of officials and priests. This group directs the lives of the people in the name of the pharaohs, god-kings who rule from their capital, Memphis.

Even by this early date the Egyptians have developed one of the great civilizations of the ancient world. The Pyramids of Giza, some of the most famous structures in all human history, have already been built, and sculptors are producing statues which will set the standard for Ancient Egyptian art for centuries to come.

Egypt
1500BC

Over the past thousand years Egypt has experienced periods of strength and unity, and also of weakness and division. At this date, however, the land has just been re-united under powerful pharaohs of what modern scholars call the "New Kingdom" of Ancient Egypt. They have swiftly imposed Egyptian control over the peoples surrounding the Nile valley to south, east and west.

Egypt
1000BC

The period after 1500 BC is one of the most successful chapters in Ancient Egypt’s history, seeing her as one of the greatest powers of the day, with an empire stretching into Palestine and Syria in the north and Nubia in the south. They also witness the construction of the great temple complexes at Luxor and in the Valley of the Kings. It is during this period that the boy-king Tutankhamun briefly reigns, as well as Ancient Egypt's most famous pharaoh, Ramesses II.

Since about 1200 BC, however, this most enduring civilization of the ancient world has been slipping into decline. She has lost her empire in Palestine and Nubia, has suffered invasions across all her borders, and has experienced political weakness at home.

Egypt
500BC

The great days of Ancient Egypt are now long past. Over the past few centuries Egypt has been invaded and occupied by several different peoples, most recently by the Persians, in 525 BC. Egypt is now merely one amongst many provinces of the huge Persian empire.

From this time on, for well over two thousand years, Egypt will be under foreign rulers. When the country again comes under a native dynasty, the ancient civilization of Egypt will be barely a memory.

Egypt
200BC

Like the rest of the Persian empire, Egypt was conquered by Alexander the Great. After his death in 323 BC, Egypt passed into the hands of his general, Ptolemy, and his descendants.

Under them, Egypt has become the wealthiest and most highly organized of the "Hellenistic" kingdoms. Although the Ptolemaic monarchs have adopted the traditional titles of the ancient pharaohs, and they worship Egyptian gods, the ruling class is largely of Greek origin, and has a Greek-speaking, Hellenistic culture.

On the coast, Alexandria is the largest and wealthiest city in the Greek-speaking world, and, with its magnificent library, is one of the leading centres of Hellenistic civilization.

Egypt
30BC

Like all the other Hellenistic kingdoms, Egypt has now been incorporated as a province into the Roman empire.

Ancient Egypt’s last independent ruler was also her most celebrated – Queen Cleopatra. She ended her life committing suicide after her defeat at the battle of Actium (31 BC).

The victorious Roman ruler Octavian (since 27 BC called Caesar Augustus) has kept the Hellenistic administration of the Ptolemies in place, highly effective as it is in extracting as much wealth as possible from the land and its people. The country now provides the distant imperial capital, Rome, with a large proportion of its grain.

Egypt
200AD

Egypt contains one of the largest and wealthiest cities of the empire, Alexandria. It is a major commercial centre, and one of the great cultural centres of the Greek-speaking parts of the empire.

The rest of the country is treated as a personal estate of the emperor, with the economy organized to extract as much produce as possible for export to Rome - Egypt continues to be the main source of grain for the imperial capital.

Egypt
500AD

The Roman province of Egypt has provided modern scholars with more information than any other, thanks to the dry desert sand which has preserved copious numbers of papyrus documents. What these show is a rural population gradually coming under the economic control of a small group of extremely wealthy families. To what extent this is true for other provinces is not clear, though it probably does represent a general trend through the eastern parts of the empire (as it had in the west in the previous two centuries.)

Egypt is a vibrant centre of Christianity, with many monks living in tough conditions in the desert. Perhaps because of the economic hardships of the people, Egypt has become a centre for Christian groups that are at odds with the official Church centred on the imperial capital of Constantinople.

Egypt
750AD

The Arabs' conquest of Egypt from the Byzantines in 639 was made easier by the Egyptian population's attachment to the monophysite branch of Christianity, regarded as a heresy by the Byzantine authorities in Constantinople, and therefore persecuted. The Arabs granted their conquered populations freedom of worship, and the Egyptians therefore welcomed them as liberators rather than conquerors.

Egyptian society has thus far been little affected by the Arab conquests.  For most of the population, it has been a case of swapping one alien ruler (in Constantinople) for another. The Arab presence was initially restricted to their new garrison town of Fustat, from which Egypt is now governed.

Egypt
979AD

In the 870s the governor of Egypt, Ahmad Ibn Tulun, gained control of both Egypt and Syria and governed as an autonomous ruler, though he was careful not to openly break with the caliph. An army from Baghdad restored them to the caliph’s control in 905, but thirty years later Egypt again became autonomous under a rebellious governor, Muhammad ibn Tughj (935). In 969 the Fatimids, a fervent Shi’ite sect, conquered Egypt. The Fatimids make no pretence of loyalty to the caliph in Baghdad, and their aim is, in fact, to displace them as the rulers of the entire Islamic world.

As an independent state, Egypt’s tax revenues are now all spent within its own borders, rather than some or all of them being dispatched to some distant imperial capital such as Rome, Constantinople or Baghdad. This has allowed Egypt's rulers to invest in Egypt's agriculture, improve and maintain the irrigation system, increase the prosperity of the country and boost the government's tax revenues.

The process of Islamization (and Arabization) has been slowly gaining pace in Egypt. This has not been official policy: quite the reverse (non-Muslims paid higher taxes, so conversion was not encouraged by the government). However, the need by many people to deal with the new ruling elite has spread the knowledge of Arabic, and perhaps too the advantages which come from belonging to the ruler’s religious community, has encouraged many to convert. Nevertheless, the majority of Egyptians are still Christians at this date.

Egypt
1215AD

Although the Fatimids failed to achieve their goal of replacing the caliph in Baghdad, they did succeed in building up a large empire centered on Egypt. Under them, the Egyptian economy prospered. Trade expanded, as, with Fatimid control of the Red Sea, Egypt became once again the great entrepot of long-distance maritime trade between east and west. The Fatimid capital, Cairo, became the chief cultural centre of the Islamic world, with Muslim literature, philosophy and science thriving.

Under Fatimid rule, thousands of Arabs settled in Egypt. At one point these posed such a serious threat to the regime that the Fatimids encouraged two of the largest Arab tribes to emigrate westwards into the Maghreb. Here they destabilize the emirate of Tunis.

By the mid-12th century, Fatimid rule had weakened, and a Turkish general from Syrian, Saladin, was able to gain control of the country (c. 1170) and going on to annex parts of Arabia and Syria. With the capture of Jerusalem from the Crusaders (1187), most of Palestine also came under his rule. Saladin’s descendants, the Ayyibids, have indulged in frequent power-struggles, however, and this has allowed the Crusaders to hold on to their remaining possessions in the Levant.

Egypt
1453AD

Saladin’s descendants surrounded themselves with a force of Turkish slaves, called Mamluqs. This force gained more and more power, until, taking advantage of yet another power-struggle within the royal family, they appointed one of their own members to the sultanate (1250). Ever since then Egypt and much of Syria has been ruled by Mamluq sultans, who have successfully defended and expanding their state and pulled the government of their different lands under one centralized administration. Perhaps their single most important achievement has been to defeat the Mongol army (1260) and so put an end to its hitherto unstoppable expansion.

Under the Mamluqs, Egypt has continued to be the chief centre of Arabic civilization. However, recurrent plagues have reduced her population, and Timur’s conquest of Syria (1400) was a major blow to Mamluq power. Raiding by Bedouin tribes has also become a problem.

Egypt
1648AD

Egypt has, once again, become a province within a large empire, that of the Ottomans (1517). Again the Egyptian people have to pay taxes which are spent in a distant imperial capital. Their economic position has also been somewhat undermined by the rise of European sea power in the Indian Ocean, which has diverted some trade between India and Europe away from the Red Sea and Egypt.

On conquering Egypt, the Ottomans left the Mamluq elite in a position of leadership within the country. Mamluqs troops were given an important role within the Ottoman army, and Mamluq officials were used by the Ottomans to help them govern Egypt. As time goes by the Mamluqs play an increasingly important part in the provincial administration, and by this date are on their way to re-establishing themselves as the dominant element within Egyptian society and government.

Egypt
1789AD

By this time, the Mamluks virtually rule Egypt again. Their leaders, or beys, continue to acknowledge the authority of the Ottoman sultan and his representatives, and to send tribute but, within the borders of Egypt, they reign supreme. The main factor preventing them from gaining even more power is their own internal instability, as the frequent power-struggles within their ranks prevent them from achieving a stable, united front against the Ottoman government in Costantinople.

Egypt
1837AD

This part of the Ottoman dominions experienced direct European military might when Napoleon invaded it in 1798, utterly defeating local Mamluq forces at the Battle of the Pyramids. British sea power prevented him from receiving any reinforcements from France, thus bringing his campaign to a halt. Napoleon himself secretly left his army in Egypt in 1799, and a British army finally reconquered the country for the Ottomans in 1801.

A Turkish general, Muhammed Ali, was sent to Egypt to restore order, and he was soon acting as a semi-independent ruler. He set about modernizing the country, but seeing that nothing could be done while the Mamluqs retained their power, he massacred them. He built hundreds of schools, modernized the administration, and introduced printing into the country (as a government monopoly). He raised a western-style army, recruited from the peasantry, and then set about conquering a huge empire in the Sudan.

In 1821 he helped the sultan put down a rebellion in Greece. This confirmed his de facto independence from Constantinople, and in 1833 he demanded, and, due to British and French pressure, gained Syria from the sultan as payment for his part in the war of Greek independence.

A little while later he started marching on Constantinople itself. The situation was resolved when he was forced to withdraw and give up his claims to Syria, in exchange for the hereditary rule of Egypt.

Egypt
1871AD

Building on the modernization programme of his grandfather, Ismael (reigned 1863-79) has expanded Egypt’s frontiers further into the Sudan.

One of the great engineering works of the 19th century was completed in 1869 with the opening of the Suez Canal. This had been dug by French engineers and Egyptian labour over a ten-year period. It was a magnificent achievement. From now on the canal would be the prime route between Europe and the East, greatly shortening the time taken by ships to make the voyage.

Although it has been built with French money, the British government has ensured that it is the largest stock-holder. This has given it a huge economic stake in the political stability of Egypt.