For nearly one million years, Egypt’s early pharaohs presided over a prosperous and wealthy state that built countless temples and palaces, enormous public works, and the famous Giza pyramids.
The Nile Valley was first inhabited in the Lower Paleolithic Period around ( 300,000 B.C.–90,000 B.C.).
Neolithic people continued to create stone tools, and exploit domesticated plants and animals from (7000–4500 B.C.).
In the ensuing millennia many forms of art flourish, including jewelry (faience beads), ceramic vessels, geometric figures, and pottery, much of which is found in tombs.
Hierakonpolis in the south, the largest Predynastic settlement known, is the center of political control.
The pyramids of Giza and Saqqara were erected in the Old Kingdom between ( 2649–2150 B.C.), one of the most dynamic and innovative periods in Egyptian culture.
Power was decentralized during the First Intermediate Period which lasted from (ca. 2150–2030 B.C.), only to be unified again by the Theban king Mentuhotep II in the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2030–1640 B.C.
While the civilization’s rulers, language, writing, climate, religion and borders have changed many times over the millennia, Egypt still exists as a modern-day country.
Much of the prosperity (at that time) depended on the regular flow of the Nile River in a country that otherwise would be only desert.
Around 2200 B.C., ancient texts suggest that Egypt’s so-called Old Kingdom gave way to a disastrous era of foreign invasions, pestilence, civil war, and famines severe enough to result in cannibalism.
In the past decade, climate data revealed that a severe and long-term drought afflicted the region during this same time, providing evidence of an environmental trigger that led to what has long been considered a dark age of Egyptian history.
Pepy II (Neferkare) rule was also believed to have weakened the old empire.
He ruled for more than 90 years (2246 – 2152 BC) as the fourth king of the 6th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom.
When Pepy II reached old age, his authority weakened, his government officials grew ineffective.
Many nome governors evolved into semi-independent local rulers.
The government was beginning to fall apart.
Pepy II died in 2184 B.C.
He was buried in the last major Egyptian pyramid, which was named “Neferkara is established and living.”
Then, 20 kings, including one woman, took and lost the throne in less than 25 years.
By the end of this chaotic period in 2160 B.C., the Old Kingdom had completely collapsed.
This was the entire length of the 7th and 8th Dynasties (2150 – 2134 BC).
In the last few years of the 6th Dynasty, the erosion of power of the centralized state was offset by that of provincial governors and officials who became hereditary holders of their posts and treated their regions as their own property.
Some Egyptologists attribute the sudden collapse of the Old Kingdom to the long reign of Pepy II and internal wranglings after his death over succession.
Yes! You must have heard of recurring famine in Egypt.
It did a lot of damage to the old Egyptian empire.
In AD 967, a low flood caused a severe famine that left 600,000 people dead in and around Fustat, the-then capital of Egypt.
The famine lasted for two years and it was not until AD 971-2 that plentiful harvests returned.
Once again, in 1201, low Nile floods followed by another low flood in 1202 caused a catastrophic famine.
This eyewitness account comes from Abdel-Latif Al-Baghdadi, a physician/scholar from Baghdad who was in Egypt from 1194 to AD 1200.
He reported that people emigrated in crowds and that those who remained habitually ate human flesh; parents even ate their own children.
Graves were ransacked for food, assassinations and robbery reigned unchecked and noblewomen implored to be bought as slaves.
Al-Baghdadi’s account is almost an exact copy of that recorded by Ankhtifi, more than 3000 years earlier.
All Upper Egypt was dying of hunger, to such an extent that everyone has come to eating his children.
The entire country had become starved like a starved grasshopper, with people going to the north and to the south (in search of grain). (Al-Baghdadi, a physician / scholar from Baghad)
The low Nile episode that devastated the Old Kingdom was, however, of greater magnitude and duration than that of 967 or AD 1201.
The history of ancient Egypt occurred as a series of stable kingdoms, separated by periods of relative instability known as Intermediate Periods: The Old Kingdom of the Early Bronze Age, the Middle Kingdom of the Middle Bronze Age and the New Kingdom of the Late Bronze Age.
In 332 BC, Alexander the Great conquered Egypt with little resistance from the Persians and was welcomed by the Egyptians as a deliverer.
The administration established by Alexander’s successors, the Macedonian Ptolemaic Kingdom, was based on an Egyptian model and based in the new capital city of Alexandria.
The city showcased the power and prestige of Hellenistic rule, and became a seat of learning and culture, centered at the famous Library of Alexandria.
The Lighthouse of Alexandria lit the way for the many ships that kept trade flowing through the city—as the Ptolemies made commerce and revenue-generating enterprises, such as papyrus manufacturing, their top priority.
Hellenistic culture did not supplant native Egyptian culture, as the Ptolemies supported time-honored traditions in an effort to secure the loyalty of the populace.
They built new temples in Egyptian style, supported traditional cults, and portrayed themselves as pharaohs.
Some traditions merged, as Greek and Egyptian gods were syncretized into composite deities, such as Serapis, and classical Greek forms of sculpture influenced traditional Egyptian motifs.
Despite their efforts to appease the Egyptians, the Ptolemies were challenged by native rebellion, bitter family rivalries, and the powerful mob of Alexandria that formed after the death of Ptolemy IV.
In addition, as Rome relied more heavily on imports of grain from Egypt, the Romans took great interest in the political situation in the country. Continued Egyptian revolts, ambitious politicians, and powerful opponents from the Near East made this situation unstable, leading Rome to send forces to secure the country as a province of its empire.
Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire in 30 BC, following the defeat of Mark Antony and Ptolemaic Queen Cleopatra VII by Octavian (later Emperor Augustus) in the Battle of Actium.
The Romans relied heavily on grain shipments from Egypt, and the Roman army, under the control of a prefect appointed by the emperor, quelled rebellions, strictly enforced the collection of heavy taxes, and prevented attacks by bandits, which had become a notorious problem during the period.
Alexandria became an increasingly important center on the trade route with the orient, as exotic luxuries were in high demand in Rome.
Although the Romans had a more hostile attitude than the Greeks towards the Egyptians, some traditions such as mummification and worship of the traditional gods continued.
The art of mummy portraiture flourished, and some Roman emperors had themselves depicted as pharaohs, though not to the extent that the Ptolemies had. The former lived outside Egypt and did not perform the ceremonial functions of Egyptian kingship.
Local administration became Roman in style and closed to native Egyptians.
From the mid-first century AD, Christianity took root in Egypt and it was originally seen as another cult that could be accepted.
However, it was an uncompromising religion that sought to win converts from the pagan Egyptian and Greco-Roman religions and threatened popular religious traditions.
This led to the persecution of converts to Christianity, culminating in the great purges of Diocletian starting in 303, but eventually Christianity won out.
In 391 the Christian emperor Theodosius introduced legislation that banned pagan rites and closed temples.
Alexandria became the scene of great anti-pagan riots with public and private religious imagery destroyed.
As a consequence, Egypt’s native religious culture was continually in decline.
While the native population continued to speak their language, the ability to read hieroglyphic writing slowly disappeared as the role of the Egyptian temple priests and priestesses diminished.
The temples themselves were sometimes converted to churches or abandoned to the desert.
In the fourth century, as the Roman Empire divided, Egypt found itself in the Eastern Empire with its capital at Constantinople.
In the waning years of the Empire, Egypt fell to the Sasanian Persian army in the Sasanian conquest of Egypt (618–628).
It was then recaptured by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius (629–639), and was finally captured by Muslim Rashidun army in 639–641, ending Byzantine rule.
But why was it an Abomination to the Egyptians to eat with Hebrews?
No reason is given.
Many historians conclude that it would have been a cultural practice where the Egyptians saw themselves superior to the Hebrews.
But that’s just the surface for there was more to these intense idol worshipping Egyptians.
Gen 46:33,34
“And it shall come to pass, when Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say, What is your occupation? That ye shall say, Thy servants’ trade hath been about cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and also our fathers: that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians.”
Now the reason starts to become clearer, as it is mentioned herding sheep was seen as an abominable act to the Egyptians.
This is why the Hebrews were settled in Goshen, away from the Egyptians. But why did the Egyptians see shepherds as an abomination? Let us look at the next hint:
Exo 8:26
“And Moses said, It is not meet so to do; for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the LORD our God: lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone us?”
When Moses speaks to Pharoah and asks him to let the Hebrews go, so that they can sacrifice to YHVH, the Pharoah tells Moses to do their sacrifices inside Egypt.
To which Moses replies in the above manner seen in Exo 8:26.
The phrase “Abomination of the Egyptians” does not mean that they saw sheep as an unclean/abominable animal.
On the contrary, they worshiped it!
The phrasing is written in the perspective of the Israelites and not the Egyptians. Meaning the sheep was a sacred animal which was an abomination that the Egyptians were involved in, in the eyes of God and His people.
We see evidence for this in the following verse.
2 Kings 23:13
“And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile.”
In the above verse we see that the “Abomination of the Zidonians” was “Ashtoreth”.
The “Abomination of the Moabites” was “Chemosh”.
The “Abomination of the Ammonites” was “Milcom”.
These were all pagan gods that were abominations in the perspective of God and His people.
In the same way, the “Abomination of the Egyptians” was the “sheep”.
There is historical evidence that the sheep was venerated by the Egyptians, and this makes perfect sense of the first hint we saw in Gen 43:32 as they saw Hebrews as a people who raised, kept and killed sheep as livestock.
This is why shepherds were an abomination to the Egyptians as seen in Gen 46:33,34.
Khnum and Anum were the two main deities of the Egyptians that had a connection to the Sheep.
Khnum was one of the earliest-known Egyptian deities, originally the god of the source of the Nile.
The worship of Khnum centered on two principal riverside sites, Elephantine and Esna, which were regarded as sacred sites.
At Elephantine, he was worshipped alongside Anuket and Satis as the guardian of the source of the Nile River.
Amun is a major ancient Egyptian deity which was later fused with the Sun god, Ra, as Amun-Ra or Amun-Re. Amun-Ra held the position of transcendental, self-created creator deity and was positioned as King of Gods developed to the point of virtual monotheism where other gods became manifestations of him. With Osiris, Amun-Ra is the most widely recorded of the Egyptian gods and was depicted at one point as a ram-headed deity.
Prior to entering the Temple of Amun in Karnak, there is a long row of Sphinxese depicting the ram of the god amun with the king standing under its paws beneath its chin.
The first plague that came upon Egypt may have also targeted Khnum, as he was regarded as the guardian of the Nile.
In A.D. 1971, Egypt with the aid of the Soviet Union completed a dam across the Nile at Aswan, forming Lake Nasser.
This dam replaced a smaller one built by the
British in the early 1900s.
The purpose of the Aswan High Dam is to keep the river at a constant level throughout the year to irrigate more farmland and produce hydroelectric power.
Thus, the Nile flood now stops at Aswan.
The Aswan High Dam has increased Egypt’s agricultural production and electricity, but at a cost to the environment.
The dam traps the fertile silt upstream in Lake Nasser.
Farmers depend on chemical fertilizers rather than the natural rich soil deposited by the Nile floods.
In addition, the dam has caused the water table to rise along the Nile, which allows mineral salts to penetrate and damage nearby ancient buildings and monuments.
