Old Kingdom of Egypt

In ancient Egyptian history, the Old Kingdom is the period spanning BC. It is also known as the "Age of the Pyramids" or the "Age of the Pyramid Builders", as it encompasses the reigns of the great pyramid-builders of the Fourth Dynasty, such as King Sneferu, under whom the art of pyramid-building was perfected, and the kings Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, who commissioned the construction of the pyramids at Giza. Egypt attained its first sustained peak of civilization during the Old Kingdom, the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods (followed by the Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom), which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley. Not only was the last king of the Early Dynastic Period related to the first two kings of the Old Kingdom, but the "capital", the royal residence, remained at Ineb-Hedj, the Egyptian name for Memphis. The basic justification for separating the two periods is the revolutionary change in architecture accompanied by the effects on Egyptian society and the economy of large-scale building projects.

The Old Kingdom is most commonly regarded as the period from the Third Dynasty to the Sixth Dynasty (2686–2181 BC). Information from the Fourth to the Sixth Dynasties of Egypt is scarce, and historians regard the history of the era as literally "written in stone" and largely architectural in that it is through the monuments and their inscriptions that scholars have been able to construct a history.

Under King Djoser, the first king of the Third Dynasty of the Old Kingdom, a new era of building was initiated at Saqqara. Djoser's architect, Imhotep, is credited with the development of building with stone and with the conception of the new architectural form, the step pyramid.

File:Saqqara BW 5.jpg|The Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara.

File:Templo de Zoser en Saqqara.jpg|The Temple of Djoser at Saqqara

File: Djoser statue.jpg| Limestone Ka statue of Djoser from his pyramid serdab at Saqqara, Egyptian Museum, Cairo

File:Head of a King, ca. 2650-2600 B.C.E..jpg|The head of a King, likely Huni –2600 BC, Brooklyn Museum.

The [[Narmer Palette depicts the unification of the Two Lands.]]

File:Limestone head of a king. Thought by Petrie to be Narmer. Bought by Petrie in Cairo, Egypt. 1st Dynasty. The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London.jpg|Limestone head of an early Egyptian king, The Petrie Museum. Modern scholars have considered the stone bust to depict an Early Dynastic or Old Kingdom pharaoh.

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Height of the Old Kingdom

thumb|The [[Great Sphinx of Giza in front of the Great Pyramid of Giza]]

The Old Kingdom and its royal power reached a zenith under the Fourth Dynasty (2613–2494 BC). King Sneferu, the first king of the Fourth Dynasty, held territory from ancient Libya in the west to the Sinai Peninsula in the east, to Nubia in the south. An Egyptian settlement was founded at Buhen in Nubia which endured for 200 years. After Djoser, Sneferu was the next great pyramid builder. He commissioned the building of three pyramids. The first is called the Meidum Pyramid, named for its location in Egypt. Sneferu abandoned it after the outside casing fell off of the pyramid. The Meidum pyramid was the first to have an above-ground burial chamber. Sneferu used more stones than any other Pharaoh. He also commissioned the Bent Pyramid at Dahshur and the Red Pyramid at North Dahshur.

Sneferu was succeeded by his son, Khufu (2589–2566 BC), who commissioned the Great Pyramid of Giza, with which the fully developed pyramid style was reached.Alternatively, the Sphinx has been proposed to be the work of Khafre and Khufu himself.

There were military expeditions into Canaan and Nubia, with Egyptian influence reaching up the Nile into what is today Sudan. The later kings of the Fourth Dynasty were Menkaure (2532–2504 BC), who commissioned the smallest of the three great pyramids in Giza; Shepseskaf (2504–2498 BC); and, perhaps, Djedefptah (2498–2496 BC).

thumb|[[Khufu, the builder of the Great Pyramid at Giza]]

thumb|Princess [[Nefertiabet, likely daughter of Khufu, from her Giza tomb. Louvre Museum E 15591.]]

Fifth Dynasty

The Fifth Dynasty (2494–2345 BC) began with Userkaf (2494–2487 BC) and was marked by the growing importance of the cult of sun god Ra. Consequently, fewer efforts were devoted to the construction of pyramid complexes than during the Fourth Dynasty and more to the construction of sun temples in Abusir. Userkaf was succeeded by his son Sahure (2487–2475 BC), who commanded an expedition to Punt. Sahure was in turn succeeded by Neferirkare Kakai (2475–2455 BC), who was Sahure's son. Neferirkare introduced the prenomen in the royal titulary. He was followed by two short-lived kings, his son Neferefre (2455–2453 BC) and Shepseskare, the latter of uncertain parentage. Shepseskare may have been deposed by Neferefre's brother Nyuserre Ini (2445–2421 BC), a long-lived pharaoh who commissioned extensively in Abusir and restarted royal activity in Giza.

The last pharaohs of the dynasty were Menkauhor Kaiu (2421–2414 BC), Djedkare Isesi (2414–2375 BC), and Unas (2375–2345), the earliest ruler to have the Pyramid Texts inscribed in his pyramid.

Egypt's expanding interests in trade goods such as ebony, incense such as myrrh and frankincense, gold, copper, and other useful metals inspired the ancient Egyptians to build suitable ships for navigation of the open sea. They traded with Lebanon for cedar and travelled the length of the Red Sea to the Kingdom of Punt- modern-day Eritrea—for ebony, ivory, and aromatic resins.

Shipbuilders of that era did not use pegs (treenails) or metal fasteners, but relied on the rope to keep their ships assembled. Planks and the superstructure were tightly tied and bound together.

This period also witnessed direct trade between Egypt and its Aegean neighbors and Anatolia.

The rulers of the dynasty sent expeditions to the stone quarries and gold mines of Nubia and the mines of Sinai. There are references and depictions of military campaigns in Nubia and Asia.

Decline into the First Intermediate Period

The sixth dynasty peaked during the reigns of Pepi I and Merenre I with flourishing trade, several mining and quarrying expeditions and major military campaigns.

Militarily, aggressive expansion into Nubia marked Pepi I's reign. At least five military expeditions were sent into Canaan.

There is evidence that Merenre was not only active in Nubia like Pepi I but also sent officials to maintain Egyptian rule over Nubia from the northern border to the area south of the third cataract.

Whatever its cause, the collapse of the Old Kingdom was followed by decades of famine and strife. An important inscription on the tomb of Ankhtifi, a nomarch during the early First Intermediate Period, describes the pitiful state of the country when famine stalked the land.

Art

The most defining feature of ancient Egyptian art is its function, as that was the entire purpose of creation. Art was not made for enjoyment in the strictest sense, but rather served a role of some kind in Egyptian religion and ideology. This fact manifests itself in the artistic style, even as it evolved over the dynasties. The three primary principles of that style, frontality, composite composition, and hierarchy scale, illustrate this quite well. and solidified during the Old Kingdom, persisted with some adaptability throughout the entirety of ancient Egyptian history as the foundation of its art.

thumb|[[False door from the Tomb of Metjetji. ca. 2353–2323 BC, Dynasty 5–6, Old Kingdom. Tomb of Metjetji at Saqqara.]]

Frontality, the first principle, indicates that art was watched directly from the front. One was meant to approach a piece as they would a living individual, for it was meant to be a place of manifestation. The act of interaction would bring forth the divine entity represented in the art. Composite composition, the second principle, also contributes to the goal of identification. Multiple perspectives were used in order to ensure that the onlooker could determine precisely what they saw.]]

Though the above concepts apply to most, if not all, figures in Egyptian art, there are additional characteristics that applied to the representations of the king. Their appearance was not an exact rendering of the king's visage, though kings are somewhat identifiable through looks alone. Identification could be supplied by inscriptions or context.

As such, the king was portrayed as young and vital, with features that agreed with the standards of beauty of the time. The musculature seen in male figures was also applied to kings. A royal rite, the jubilee run which was established during the Old Kingdom, involved the king running around a group of markers that symbolized the geographic borders of Egypt. This was meant to be a demonstration of the king's physical vigor, which determined his capacity to continue his reign. The color of the stone had a great deal of symbolism and was chosen deliberately. and is therefore associated with rebirth and the rising of the sun in the east.

Old Kingdom genetics

thumb|Facial reconstruction and depiction created from the Nuwayrat individual skull.

For the first time, in a 2025 publication by the scientific journal Nature, a whole-genome genetic study was able to give insights into the genetic background of Old Kingdom individuals, by sequencing the whole genome of an Old Kingdom adult male Egyptian of relatively high-status, radiocarbon-dated to 2855–2570 BC, with funerary practices archeologically attributed to the Third and Fourth Dynasty, which was excavated in Nuwayrat (Nuerat, نويرات), in a cliff 265 km south of Cairo. Before this study, whole-genome sequencing of ancient Egyptians from the early periods of Egyptian Dynastic history had not yet been accomplished, mainly because of the problematic DNA preservation conditions in Egypt. Genomes from the Neolithic/Chalcolithic Levant only appeared as a minor third-place component in three-source models. This suggests a pattern of wide cultural and demographic expansion from the Mesopotamian region, which affected both Anatolia and Egypt during this period. Analyses excluded any substantial ancestry in the Nuwayrat genome related to a previously published 4,500-year-old hunter-gatherer genome from the Mota cave in Ethiopia, or other individuals in central, eastern, or southern Africa.

Regarding the supplement facial reconstruction, the researchers noted that while the DNA analysis is indicative of population origin, there was no physical evidence of any particular skin colour, eye colour, or hair colour, and therefore, the reconstruction was produced in black and white without head hair or facial hair.

Gallery

File:Kairo Museum Statuette Cheops 03 (cropped).jpg|King khufu statue at Cairo museum

File:Kairo Museum Sitzstatue Chephren 06.jpg|King khafre statue at Cairo museum

File:MenkauraAndQueen MuseumOfFineArtsBoston.png|Greywacke statue of Menkaure and Queen Khamerernebty II at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts

File:Ägyptisches Museum Kairo 2016-03-29 Rahotep Nofret 01.jpg|Rahotep and Nofret statues at Cairo museum

File:Ägyptisches Museum Kairo 2016-03-29 Ka-aper 02.jpg|Kaaper around 2500 BC

File:Egypte louvre 280 homme.jpg|Majordomo Keki statue, 6th dynasty at Louvre museum