List of pharaohs

This article contains a list of the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, from the Early Dynastic Period before 3000 BC through to the end of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, when Egypt became a province of Rome under Augustus Caesar in 30 BC.

Note that the dates given must be regarded in most instances as approximate. Dating systems for Egyptian studies are quite various, depending on how they are constructed and what assumptions are used. The list of pharaohs presented below is one such interpretation, but it is assuredly not the only one.

Existing primary old lists of pharaohs

The texts of existing primary old lists of pharaohs are incomplete:
*Palermo stone
*Turin Royal Canon
*Manetho's Aegyptiaca (History of Egypt)
*Abydos King List
*Karnak Tablet
*South Saqqara Stone (discovered 1923, includes dyn. 6)
* Saqqara Tablet - discovered 1861, includes dyn. 1-12)

Archibald Sayce gave comparative data on several of these lists in his book "The Ancient Empires of the East" (1884) [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=KhYOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA277&dq=%22dynastic+tables%22 Dynastic Tables: Kings of Egypt] ] , in addition to the lists found in Herodotus, Diodorus, Eratosthenes, and even a fanciful list found in "the Arabic writers". Yet another fanciful list that does not appear in Sayce, is found in the "Book of Sothis" that George Syncellus attributed to Manetho.

Legendary period

In the texts of the Palermo, Turin and Manetho king lists, there are different versions of names of 8 god kings that ruled Egypt before Menes. [ [http://www.atlantisquest.com/Manetho.html Problems with Manetho's "Reign of the Gods"] Page with different versions of god king lists]

Archaic period

The Archaic period includes the Early Dynastic Period, when Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt were ruled as separate kingdoms, and the First and Second Dynasties

Early dynastic: Lower Egypt

Lower Egypt, known as the Black Land, consisted of the northern Nile and the Nile Delta. The following list may not be complete:

econd Dynasty

The Second Dynasty ruled from 2890 to
2686 BC.

Fifth Dynasty

The Fifth Dynasty ruled from 2498 to 2345 BC.

Ninth Dynasty

The Ninth Dynasty ruled from 2160 to 2130 BC.

Middle Kingdom

The Middle Kingdom is the period from the end of the First Intermediate Period to the beginning of the Second Intermediate Period. In addition to the Twelfth Dynasty, some scholars include the Eleventh, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dynasties in the Middle Kingdom. The Middle Kingdom can be noted for the expansion of trade outside of the kingdom that occurred during this time. This opening of trade eventually led to the downfall of the Middle Kingdom, induced by an invasion from the Hyksos.

Eleventh Dynasty Continued

The second part of the Eleventh Dynasty is considered to be part of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt.

The position of the following kings is uncertain:

The Turin King List provides an additional 25 names, some fragmentary, and no dates. None are attested to elsewhere, and all are of very dubious provenance.

Fifteenth Dynasty

The Fifteenth Dynasty arose from among the Hyksos people: desert Bedouins who emerged out of the Fertile Crescent to establish a short-lived governance over much of the Nile region, and ruled from 1674 to 1535 BC.

New Kingdom

The New Kingdom is the period covering the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth dynasty of Egypt, from the 16th century BC to the 11th century BC, between the Second Intermediate Period, and the Third Intermediate Period.

Through military dominance abroad, the New Kingdom saw Egypt's greatest territorial extent. It expanded far into Nubia in the south, and held wide territories in the Near East. Egyptian armies fought with Hittite armies for control of modern-day Syria.

Two of the best known pharaohs of the New Kingdom are Akhenaten, also known as Amenhotep IV, whose exclusive worship of the Aten is often interpreted as the first instance of monotheism, and Ramesses II, who attempted to recover the territories in modern Israel/Palestine, Lebanon and Syria that had been held in the Eighteenth Dynasty. His reconquest led to the Battle of Qadesh, where he led the Egyptian armies against the army of the Hittite king Muwatalli II.

Eighteenth Dynasty

The Eighteenth Dynasty ruled from 1550 to 1295 BC:

Third intermediate period

The Third Intermediate Period marked the end of the New Kingdom after the collapse of the Egyptian empire. A number of dynasties of Libyan origin ruled, giving this period its alternative name of the Libyan Period.

Twenty-first Dynasty

The Twenty-first Dynasty was based at Tanis and was a relatively weak group. Theoretically, they were rulers of all Egypt, but in practice their influence was limited to Lower Egypt. They ruled from 1069 to 945 BC

The Libu

Not reckoned a dynasty as such, the Libu were yet another group of western nomads (Libyans) who occupied the western Delta from 805 to 732 BC.

They were ultimately driven back into Nubia, where they established a kingdom at Napata (656-590), and, later, at Meroë (590 BC-4th cent. AD).

Twenty-sixth Dynasty

The Twenty-sixth Dynasty ruled from around 672 to 525 BC. [cite web|url=http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/chronology/lateperiodkings.html|title=Late Period Kings|accessdate=2007-10-27]

Twenty-ninth Dynasty

The Twenty-ninth Dynasty ruled from 398 to 380 BC:

Argead Dynasty

The Macedonians under Alexander the Great ushered in the Hellenistic period with his conquest of Persia and Egypt. The Argeads ruled from 332 to 309 BC:

Ptolemaic Dynasty

The second Hellenistic dynasty, the Ptolemies ruled Egypt from 305 BC until Egypt became a province of Rome in 30 BC (whenever two dates overlap, that means there was a co-regency):

Rome

Cleopatra VII had an affair with Roman Dictator Julius Caesar, and Roman General Marc Antony, but it wasn't until after her suicide in 30 BC (after Marc Antony was defeated by Octavian, who would later be the emperor Augustus) that Egypt became a province of Rome in 30 BC.Subsequent Roman Emperors were accorded the title of Pharaoh, although exclusively while in Egypt. See the list of Roman emperors.

ee also

*Conventional Egyptian chronology
*Egyptian chronology
*History of Egypt
*Lists of office-holders
*The Greatest Pharaohs

Notes

References

* J. H. Breasted, "History of Egypt from the Earliest Time to the Persian Conquest", 1909
* J. Cerny, 'Egypt from the Death of Ramesses III to the End of the Twenty-First Dynasty' in The Middle East and the Aegean Region c.1380-1000 BC, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-08691-4
* Clayton, Peter A. (1994) "Chronicle of the Pharaohs: the reign-by-reign record of the rulers and dynasties of ancient Egypt" Thames and Hudson, New York, ISBN 0500050740
* Dodson, Aidan and Hilton, Dyan. The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson. 2004. ISBN 0-500-05128-3
* Sir Alan Gardiner "Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs", Third Edition, Revised. London: Oxford University Press, 1964. Excursus A, pp. 71-76.
* Nicolas Grimal, A History of Ancient Egypt, (Blackwell Books: 1992)
* Murnane, William J. "Ancient Egyptian Coregencies, Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization. No. 40." The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1977
* Michael Rice, "Who's Who in Ancient Egypt", Routledge 1999
* Ryholt, Kim & Steven Bardrum. 2000. "The Late Old Kingdom in the Turin King-list and the Identity of Nitocris." "Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde" 127
* Shaw, Ian. "The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt.", Oxford University Press, 2000.
* Toby A. H. Wilkinson, "Early Dynastic Egypt", Routledge 1999, ISBN 0-415-18633-1
* Verner, Miroslav, The Pyramids - Their Archaeology and History, Atlantic Books, 2001, ISBN 1-84354-171-8

External links

* [http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Egypt/index.htm Egyptian Royal Genealogy]
* [http://www.egyptologyonline.com/manetho.htm Manetho and the King Lists] Review of different primary king lists
* [http://www.atlantisquest.com/Manetho.html Problems with Manetho's "Reign of the Gods"] Page with different versions of god king lists
* [http://www.narmer.pl/dyn/00en.htm Chronology Table - 0 Dynasty] & [http://www.narmer.pl/main/chr_his_en.htm History Period, by Dariusz Sitek] Multi-pages of list of pharaohs in different king lists, without the god kings, in Egyptian hieroglyphs and English
* [http://www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/history/00kinglists.html Egyptian Journey 2003: History: King Lists] Hyperlink texts of the Manetho, Abydos & Turin king lists, without the god-kings
* [http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/Welcome.html Digital Egypt for Universities]
* [http://www.egyptianonlinestore.com Ancient Egyptian papyrus collection and stories behind each scene, Egyptian museum masterpieces reproductions]