Talk:History of Egypt

Miscellaneous

Shouldn't the history of Egypt be under an article Egypt/History?

No, this is a deep and complex subject and will need sub-pages of its own. Surely worth a topic in its own right. sjc

---

It will need lots and lots of articles, anyway, if not subpages.

This is a great article so far! --LMS

Yes, I helped canonize the */History bits by all the additions from the CIA World Factbook and now wish I hadn't; I've come to dislike subpages quite a lot--convinced, no doubt, by LMS' arguments. Anyway, but yes, this is a fantastic article. --Koyaanis Qatsi

---

Shouldn't this article also at least mention the most recent 2000 years of Egypt's history? Wesley

---

There's a lengthy writeup, in the public domain, here for anyone who cares to go through it and pick bits to incorporate. I don't consider myself qualified for it. Not a historian, Koyaanis Qatsi 15:20, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I included the text from this source. Kind of data dumping, sorry about that. Need wikification. olivier 07:15, 30 Aug 2003 (UTC)

---

I have heard that Mohammed Ali (or Mehmet Ali) was actually of Albanian descent (see this). Is there any truth to this? ¬ Dori 05:32, 8 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Yes he was born to Albanian parents, see Wikipedia article "Muhammad Ali of Egypt" for more details. The Sultan sent him to Egypt and he did so well for himself he took over Egypt and most of Sudan and got titles from the Ottoman Sultan, but was never considered by the Ottoman Sultan to be an independent ruler or governor. MichaelSchwing 00:39, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

---

This is a nice article, especially so since it tries to sum up 6000 years of history in about 10 pages. Some questions follow that I unfortunately don't know the answers to. Tempshill 01:13, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

---

First off it would be great to have a definition of a dynasty since this is an important concept used throughout the article. Does this mean a pharoah and his son, descending through the male line until an interruption occurs? Tempshill 01:13, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

---

The Dynasty concept comes from Manetho. It has just been easier to keep his divisions than replace it with a new system. Some of the Dynasties could be combined together by modern definitions of family/dynasty. For instance Zanakht-Nebka and Netjerkhet-Djoser were brothers, sons of Khasekhemwy, thus uniting the end of 2nd Dynasty and beginning of the 3rd. But with Djoser began the Old Empire and (step) pyramid building along with more substantial building in stone, all attributed to his architect Imhotep, though stone floors, and door frames had been used in earlier constructions of King's tombs (at Abydos for instance). The 17th Dynasty King Seqenenre II Tao was father of Kamose and Ahmose, but with Ahmose Manetho began the 18th Dynasty as this was the New Empire and the final expulsion of the Hyksos and their followers and began the expansion into Canaan and Mesopotamia, and not just raids into those areas. So there is no real definition of Dynasty in the modern use of the term that would pertain to every Egyptian dynasty. For instance again, the two dynasties of Persian Kings were of one Persian family/dynasty the Achaemenidae (in Greek form). But their reign was interrupted by native dynasties so they count as two dynasties. In the 18th Dynasty Thutmoase I became king through his marriage with the daughter of Amenhotep I, though it is generally considered he was a son by a lesser wife. All through the 17th, 18th, and early 19h Dynasties the King became King because he married the Great Heiress, daughter of a King before him, hence the many brother-sister and even father-daughter marriages of Kings in these dynasties.

MichaelSchwing 00:32, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

---

The Egyptions reached Crete around 2000 BC...

This is the first mention that the united Egyptian kingdom was expanding. Why did it expand in that direction? Do we know?

...and were invaded by Indo-Europeans and Hyksos Semites.

They were invaded in Crete, or Egypt itself was invaded? Tempshill 01:13, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

---

When the box was opened it contained just sludge, all that remains of the Queen.

Was this opening something that happened a few years after she died, or in the 1800's? Tempshill 01:13, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

---

After this first one, several other Pyramids were built and some abandoned before they were finished.

It looks like something got deleted here. There isn't any mention of a pyramid before this paragraph. Tempshill 01:13, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

---

Sesostris I continued to wage war on Nubia.

This is the first time it's mentioned that there was a war against Nubia, unless the previous mention of "expeditions into Nubia" is meant to mean that a war was initiated and continued for 700 years. Tempshill 01:13, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

---

His given name was Tutankhaton, but with the resurgence of Amun eh was re-named Tutankhamun.

This is the first mention of Amun -- if there's discussion of a resurgence, can we mention Amun in some way previously? Tempshill 01:13, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

---

The discussion about the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th dynasties is confusing -- how was it that the 23rd ran concurrent with the 22nd? Was this a power grab with a pretender to the throne? Who was who? Was there an actual war? (unclear.) Tempshill 01:13, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

---

He died in 526 BC, and one year later in 525 BC Egypt fell under Persian power and Cambyset became the first king of the 27th Dynasty.

Fell under Persian power because of a military invasion? Tempshill 01:13, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

---

There are a couple of lists in the middle of the article that are there for unclear reasons -- the list starting with Abbas I and ending with Hosn Mubarak (this probably just needs a title), and the 3 lines "Visier Imhotep / Pharaoh Horus Netjerikhet Djzoser / Pyramid of Djzoser". Tempshill 01:13, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

---

This is the first time I have looked at this article. I see that 2,000 years of history from Alexander to Napoleon is summed up in one paragraph. This represents a very 19th century view of Egyptian history, that after the Pharaonic period the country ceased to be of interest until it was discovered by Europeans. Is anybody working on writing a proper history of this period, or interersted in doing so? Adam 03:23, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)

---

What is the original source for this edit?

http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=History_of_Egypt&diff=1365979&oldid=1365977

I can only find it on various non-governmental sites, rather than the state department as mentioned in the edit summary. Note that this edit caused me to list the History of Arab and Ottoman Egypt as a possible copyright violation. After spending another 30 minutes on it, it seems like I might be wrong, but it would have helped if the original source was listed in the article or at least the edit summary. Daniel Quinlan 09:00, Nov 24, 2003 (UTC)

2000 dynasties?!?!

"In the two thousand years that followed unification, more than two thousand dynasties rose and fell."

that means each dynasty was less than a year on average. Can a rule that was less than a year even be called a dynasty? -Lethe | Talk 01:01, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

Introducing daughter articles

The six daughter articles should be introduced, not as a self-referential table of contents, but with each link accompanying a summary section on that period. This is not as hard as it sounds - inevitably a summary section needs to be kept short, and thus much content is not present, but for example, the "History of Ottoman Egypt" could at least explain in one or two sentences the fact of Egypt being in the Ottoman Empire (links being important too).

So, I suggest six short sections, of at most a half-dozen sentences each, with the daughter articles being linked to as follows:

Main article: History of Ottoman Egypt

I'm not going to do this myself, but I thought I'd take a minute to put this here for someone else to do if they so wish.

zoney ♣ talk 08:13, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

POV

many of the history sub-articles have Eurocentric POV problems. Mostly references to the British and Egypt's fiscal situations. There's just so much, it's difficult to be consistant in revising multiple articles with the same problems. --Schwael 17:32, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

That's quite likely because they originally came from the 1911 Britannica. Anything you can do to improve them would be much appreciated. - SimonP 20:01, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Rulers of Egypt

I found a great list of the rulers of Egypt [http://www.touregypt.net/kings.htm here]. I couldn't find a similar list on Wikipedia, so I thought I would put the link here. I am also unsure how much of this can be used (copying lists that take a long time to compile is not really fair, and probably breaches copyright). However, if the list can be recompiled or checked against existing sources, and these sources added to a "Rulers of Egypt" list/article, then that might be OK. And I might have missed an existing list. Also, that list only goes up to 1796, so if it can be extended, that would be great. Carcharoth 14:34, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Having look round Wikipedia a bit more, I did find these pages: List of pharaohs; Rulers and heads of state of Egypt; Sultan of Egypt and some others. I tried to gather these lists at King of Egypt, which might not be the best name for what I've made the page. Is it worth having one page with all the rulers from ancient time to the present? Or would these separate lists be the best way to present it? Carcharoth 14:49, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Unified?

This section: The history of Egypt is the longest continuous history, as a unified state, of any country in the world, seems a bit odd to me. Wouldn't the unity imply a continuous rule inherited from the pharoahs, rather than rule by foreign invaders?

Yom 09:41, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

True. Plus, there is a difference between the Arab Republic of Egypt, Ancient Egypt, the Ptolemaic Kingdom, the Mamluk Sultanate, and the Ayyubid dynasty, IMO, they're different states (except maybe Arab Republican Egypt+Mamluk Sultanate+Ayyubids are the same thing, or just Ayyubids+Mamluks). 60.240.85.65 07:27, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Egypt is by fare the most ancient civilization the man kind has ever known. Since the Ancient ages the country stayed as a union between the north and the south. Later the "foreign invaders" invaded the whole country. Finally Islam Enters the country and it's a colony while Arabia is another colony and so as the levant. In the late ages of the Muslim Empire, Egypt was namely part of the rest of the Empire while it had and independent ruler who had the full power over the country -not a power over a colony with respect to the sultan-. Never the less, Shortly after the Ottomans came to power, Muhammad Ali Basha "The Great Baساa" claimed his control over the country and both namely and practically it was known as an independent state. He even fought the Sultan, and took parts of his Empire in the levant, arabia, and Africa. The French invaded the country and it was under their control -unlike the Ottoman Empire- and launched campaigns against the Ottomans from Egypt. The English did the same but succeeded this time, dividing arabia. the levant was under the control of the French and the English. After Independence, Egypt was not known as an arab nation. It's true that it participated in the 1948 war against the Jewish gangs, but the Egyptian participation was under the name of the Royal Egyptian Forces, while the arabs had their own Arab liberalization Army. It's wasn't before Nasser when Egypt was known as an arab nation by force. For more Information about why that dose not make Egyptian arabs, read the Identity subarticle in the main article of the country. Egypt is a nation that was made by it's own people, a nation that wasn't made by invaders, and not a nation that divided from another. Simply, the oldest Unified State.

One_last_pharaoh 4:01 AM, 30 January 2008

United

i think that the fact that every arabic country has its own individual history is stupid. All it does is sponser further distance between these countries. While I wouldn't argue that all arabic countries all the same, the differences that exist between them arent of the severity that they should be subdivided. Before the british and the french got involved after the ottomen callopse, the arab countries were all one. I'm not sugesting that there should be one HUGE page describing each history- but one page with links to each country. At least this way the arab countries could be together. Seriously when one bothers to consider it, the differences are minute- yes there are lines and borders on a map- but had it not been for these-save the dialects- one couldnt tell a lebanese from a syrian from an iraqi or egyptian. All these countries are arabic they share the same culture. And while their history can differ, for example of course egyptian history and babylonian aren't the same, but it shouldn't be enough to divide them like this.

Whoa !! U can say; the world has collapsed, the sun swallowed the moon, the earth was turned apart, and the apes have become more superior to men. U cannot say that Egyptians are arabs, u cannot compare the history of Egypt with the history of the combined arab countries, and u even cannot say that the difference is not magnificent. Egyptians are simply Egyptians. they are not arabs, they are not like arabs, and that means that they are better. Arabs hate Egypt, but sorry fully Egyptians donot hate arabs -the majority- so good luck with your "arab union" article . —Preceding unsigned comment added by One last pharaoh (talk • contribs) 13:19, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

General History of Egypt

I was just thinking: what happens to the reader who is looking for a summary of the history of Egypt? Does the person need to read 10 different articles about different periods to get a general picture? This page should be transformed into a general article about the history of Egypt. --JLCA 10:24, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. It is terrible that this article was left as a shell for years. See my comments further down the page. Luwilt (talk) 21:48, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Link to German page

German Wikipedia does not have an article about the history of Egypt in general, the link pointed to an article about the history of the Republic of Egypt, which covers only the time since 1952. I have thus moved this link to History of modern Egypt which, though it covers a longer time period, is the closest that English Wikipedia has.—Graf Bobby (talk) 12:06, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Date

I had read somewhere that Ottoman Egypt last until 1914 when a protectorate was declared, also Egypt under Ali dynasty should included into Ottoman Egypt. 96.229.126.4 (talk) 18:11, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

See History of modern Egypt. — Zerida ☥ 18:31, 13 April 2008 (

Foreign rule

So basicly Egypt was under contunius foreign rule for almost 3000 years after the fall of the 21st dynesty starting around 1000BC first by the Libians and Nubians till 670 then by the Asseryans to 600 and persians to 300 then by the greeks under the mecadonian empire then a hellenistic kingdom to 30 BC then by the romens and byzantians to 600 and after that by the arabs first directy in the calpiet then under indipendet arab states and dynesties after 900 to 1600 and then by the ottemen turks first directly from istenble then a quassy independent saltunite in the 19th centry and then by the british first dyrectly as a protecterate then by a pupit turkish dynesty untill the 1940's and then independently by a turkish king to 1956. --J intela (talk) 04:59, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

"The history of Egypt is the longest continuous history, as a unified state, of any country in the world. "

I thought the ancient Egypt has nothing to do with Egypt today culture wise. What could be used to support this very affirmative statement? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.10.115.129 (talk) 19:17, 14 November 2008 (UTC) the world as we know it is very strange and I believe that egypt itself has the most fantastic history! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.155.32.35 (talk) 22:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Original Research + Sources

This article quite confidently declares that Egypt has been a "state" for 5,000 years. Given that we rarely date the modern idea or states further back than 500 years. I'm going to label it as original research and as lacking sources. — Blue-Haired Lawyer 17:23, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

State is the wrong word, but it is true that Egypt has existed as an entity for that long. I'm not sure what the best term is for it. Encarta calls it a "coherent political entity with a recorded history since about 3200 BC" while Britannica calls it "one of the world’s oldest continuous civilizations." - SimonP (talk) 17:35, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

scope

This is essentially a disambiguation page. History of Ancient Egypt is already a huge WP:SS article, and there is simply no benefit of giving another summary of that here and combine it with summaries on modern Egypt.

That is absolutely wrong. You are forgetting that this article exists to serve readers. The destruction of this basic article is a lamentable example of the failures of the wiki approach at their worst. Luwilt (talk) 21:48, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

A tabular overview of the main periods may be useful. Alternatively, this could either be a strict {{disambig}} page (mainly between History of Ancient Egypt, Medieval Egypt, Ottoman Egypt and History of the Republic of Egypt), or a redirect to Egypt#History. --dab (𒁳) 14:49, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

This article must exist!

This is a basic topic, and the article simply must exist. Wikipedia's purpose is to serve the general reader. The general reader is likely to be looking for a basic introduction to the topic. Being informed that there are twenty more detailed articles available is not an acceptable substitute. It may seem that it is to an academic, but for the general reader it is not. I will start the repair of this editorial disaster by cutting and pasting the history section of the main Egypt article and adding an expansion notice. This article exists to serve readers who want an overview of the history of Egypt. It should be longer than the section in the main Egypt article, which is exists to serve readers who want a rounded overview of the country, and less detailed than breakout articles. This is not strange, it is the way the whole of wikipedia should work. It must not lose sight of its audience. It is not a database that simply accumulates facts, and it is not aimed at academics, who only attach status to extreme detail. It is an encyclopedia. Luwilt (talk) 21:48, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I very much agree. Great work getting this started. - SimonP (talk) 21:59, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

You have just created pointless duplication of content. I can appreciate your point, but you need to address this by redistributing content, not by writing yet another article about the history of Egypt (we have about three of those so far). If you really think that the entirely unrelated topics of history of Ancient Egypt and history of the Republic of Egypt need to be merged, please do a proper merge proposal. At some point, summaries of summaries of summaries are so summarized that a further summary of the summary of the summary of the summary is simply pointless. --dab (𒁳) 10:38, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Here is a suggestion: instead of duplicating content, we can lose history of Ancient Egypt. We have Ancient Egypt, which is inherently historical, so that a separate "history of" isn't needed. History of Ancient Egypt can be a section redirect to Ancient_Egypt#History. Now History of Egypt can become a very succinct WP:SS article, as outlined in the present revision, with five very brief sections,

• Prehistory
  Main article: Prehistoric Egypt
• Ancient Egypt
  Main article: Ancient Egypt
• Greco-Roman Egypt
  Main articles: Ptolemaic Egypt, Roman Egypt, and Byzantine Egypt
• Islamic Egypt
  Main articles: Arab Egypt, Mamluk Egypt, and Ottoman Egypt
• Modern Egypt
  Main articles: History of Egypt under the Muhammad Ali dynasty and History of modern Egypt

Basically, this just means adding bare bone prose to the list-like arrangement of dedicated articles we have now. Anything more will be detrimental. Why? Because it is a nightmare to maintain articles with large scope overlaps. People keep adding random material to one or the other article, and most of the time the summary will outgrow the dedicated article. This is part of the natural dynamics of the wiki, and we need to harness these dynamics, not try to work against it. --dab (𒁳) 12:50, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

This makes sense to me. I agree with your point about people adding random material to almost arbitrarily chosen articles (usually probably without knowing there are related articles. Dougweller (talk) 20:12, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

the problem is that nobody does it. People are very quick with comments like "This article must exist!" but not as a rule willing to do the work required. Things were just fine before article recreation. They could be fixed along the lines discussed above. As long as nobody is willing to arrange this, our best option is just to revert to the status quo ante. --dab (𒁳) 15:12, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

dramas

you are a fool !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.98.66.120 (talk) 07:13, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Expand!

This page is a copy of the history section of Egypt, it should be so much more than that. Egypt has an 7000-year old history, give it some real coverage guys! Charles Essie (talk) 00:34, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Egypt's history is describable in such detail that it's spread across many specific pages, e.g. History of Ptolemaic Egypt. This is just a summary article, describing the overall trend and providing links to more specific articles. It should be longer than the History section in the Egypt article, of course, but it shouldn't include all of Egyptian history. Knight of Truth (talk) 18:17, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

WW2?

How can you have a History of Egypt that totally omits the world-changing events of the desert campaign of 1940-43? Valetude (talk) 18:10, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

add more thigs about it, while doing a projret, not useful — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.124.220.81 (talk) 14:10, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Can't understand the above response. Valetude (talk) 14:24, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Recentism

This article is meant to give the reader a quick overview of the history of Egypt (obviously). It is not meant to cover current events on a month by month basis. We have History of the Republic of Egypt and History of modern Egypt. At the moment the pre-Republic bits have just over 2000 words, and the part covering the Republic is just less than that - almost half. Editors need to move material to the articles covering contemporary Egypt to give this article more balance. Dougweller (talk) 15:20, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to one external link on History of Egypt. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20150120043535/http://newshopper.sulekha.com/malaysia-egypt-protest_photo_1689167.htm to http://newshopper.sulekha.com/malaysia-egypt-protest_photo_1689167.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers. —^{cyberbot II}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 07:42, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on History of Egypt. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090214084636/http://www.worldtimelines.org.uk/world/africa/nile_valley/6000-4000BC to http://www.worldtimelines.org.uk/world/africa/nile_valley/6000-4000BC
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130924131816/http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/741/eg1.htm to http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/741/eg1.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 03:28, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Mutilated history?

Should it not mention more? What about connections with american stone buiders? Pyramids, precision drilling, stone clamps, giant stones, elongated skulls, similar gods... Similar items for a never explained ancient high technology. You can think this is nonsense, but the questions remains unanswered.--79.148.182.23 (talk) 17:44, 9 December 2018 (UTC)