The Ancient Egyptian Empire’s incredible brilliance is difficult to reconcile with how long ago it flourished. However, the pharaohs’ legends surely bring us closer to a magnificent civilization that lasted over 3,000 years and featured 170 pharaohs. The pharaoh played both a governmental and a religious function. Of course, interpretations differed from ruler to ruler, but the ancient Egyptians widely believed the gods endowed the pharaohs with divinity to serve as intermediaries between the gods and the people. Despite their spiritual devotion, the pharaohs were also in charge of the more worldly issues of leadership, and each pharaoh had a distinct legacy; some were architectural innovators, revered military leaders, and others were skilled diplomats. Here are ten of the most well-known Egyptian Pharaohs.
#10 King Narmer/Menes (3100 – 3040 B.C.E)
Narmer, who Egyptologists also call Menes, was the first king of undivided Egypt, uniting Upper and Lower Egypt into a single, centralized kingdom, according to legend. Manetho, an Egyptian historian from the 3rd century BCE; Min by Herodotus, a Greek historian from the 5th century BCE; and Meni by two native-king lists called him Menes from the 19th dynasty. Modern researchers to one or more archaic Egyptian pharaoh with the titles Scorpion, Narmer, and Aha have linked the traditional Menes inconclusively. Menes is credited with the unification of Egypt by battle and administrative means, as well as the establishment of the capital, Memphis, near modern-day Cairo. Excavations at aqqrah, Memphis’ cemetery, have revealed that the earliest royal tomb discovered there dates from Aha’s reign. Menes was described by Manetho as a Thinite, a native of Upper Egypt’s Thinite region, and tombs to the kings Narmer and Aha, both of whom may have been Menes, have been discovered in Abydos, a royal cemetery in the Thinite nome. Narmer also appears triumphant over his foes on a slate palette, wearing the crimson and white crowns of Lower and Upper Egypt alternately, a combination indicative of union. The entire procedure most likely took several reigns, and the typical Menes could very well represent the kings involved. Menes reigned for 62 years when a hippopotamus killed him, according to Manetho.
#9 King Khufu (2575 – 2465 B.C.E)
Khufu was the second pharaoh of Egypt’s 4th dynasty and the architect of the Great Pyramid at Al-Jzah, the world’s largest single structure at the time. The Greek historian Herodotus described Khufu’s reign and that of his son Khafre as 106 years of oppression and misery, although this was contradicted by Khufu’s posthumous reputation in Egypt as a prudent king. Khufu’s prostitution of his daughter to raise money for his construction projects is certainly mythical, according to Herodotus. Khufu was the son and successor of King Snefru. His queen Hetepheres, and was probably married four times: to Merityetes, who was buried in one of the three small pyramids beside his own; to a second queen, whose name is unknown; to Henutsen, whose small pyramid is the third of the group; and to Nefert-kau, the eldest of Snefru’s daughters. Redjedef and Khafre, two of his sons, succeeded him in turn.
#8 Queen Hatshepsut (1485-1465 B.C.E)
Queen Hatshepsut was a female Egyptian pharaoh who acquired extraordinary power for a woman by adopting all of the pharaoh’s titles and regalia. Hatshepsut, the older daughter of 18th-dynasty king Thutmose I and his consort Ahmose married Thutmose II, the son of the lady Mutnofret. Hatshepsut was a perfectly typical regent for the first few years of her stepson’s reign. The Egyptians crowned her king and she was given a full royal title by the end of his eighth regnal year. Hatshepsut never explained why she ascended to the throne or how she persuaded Egypt’s ruling class to accept her. Egyptian kings have traditionally protected their country from foes that lurked on Egypt’s borders. Hatshepsut’s reign was largely peaceful, with a foreign policy oriented on trade rather than warfare. Restoration and construction were significant royal responsibilities. Hatshepsut wrongly claimed to have undone the damage done in Egypt by the Hyksos monarchs during their reign. Hatshepsut enabled Thutmose to become more involved in official issues toward the conclusion of her reign; after her death, Thutmose III ruled Egypt alone for 33 years.
#7 King Thutmose III (1479 – 1426 B.C.E)
Thutmose III was the monarch of Egypt’s 18th dynasty and is often recognized as one of the finest rulers in the history of the country. Thutmose III was a brilliant warrior who pushed the Egyptian empire to the pinnacle of its power by conquering all of Syria, crossing the Euphrates River to fight the Mitannians, and reaching south along the Nile River to Napata in the Sudan, among other achievements. In addition, he constructed a large number of temples and monuments to celebrate his achievements. He was finally ready to march with his army at the end of a few months of preparations. The moment had come, in the 33rd year of Thutmose’s reign, for his most bold maneuver yet: an attack on the kingdom of Mitanni itself, which had grown in strength since the day Thutmose I had taken its army by surprise a year before. When it came to later campaigns, Thutmose III was content to consolidate what he had achieved and lay the groundwork for the establishment of an imperial organization in the territories he controlled in Asia. The southern frontier of Egyptian dominion over Nubia was reaffirmed by Thutmose, who constructed a temple to Amon at Napata, near Mount Barkal, to commemorate the reaffirmation of Egyptian dominion over Nubia.
#6 King Akhenaton (1360 – 1335 B.C.E)
Akhenaton was the 18th dynasty king of ancient Egypt, who was responsible for the establishment of a new cult dedicated to the Aton, the sun’s disk. In recent years, few researchers have agreed that Amenhotep III and his son Amenhotep IV shared the throne for several years of coregency; it is presumed here, in accordance with widespread scholarly consensus, that the older king died before his son ascended to the throne. Within the first few years of his reign, Amenhotep IV instituted significant reforms in the fields of religion, architecture, and the arts and sciences. While other Egyptian deities’ ancient rituals were performed in confined, darkened sanctuaries within their temples’ innermost depths, Amenhotep IV’s dedication to the Aton was manifested through the distribution of delicacies on a huge number of offering tables in broad daylight.
A new cult was introduced at the same time as advancements were made in the depiction of the human figure in both relief and sculpture. After five years in power, the king changed his name from Amenhotep to Akhenaton, which means “Great King.” A new series of royal homes and open-air temples, the latter of which were constructed entirely from limestone talatat and adorned in a fashion comparable to that of their predecessors at Karnak, began construction in earnest in the late 1970s. Private tombs for the officials of Akhenaton’s court were constructed in the northern and southern cliffs of the eastern cliffs, albeit none were ever completed or utilized for burial purposes in the long run.
The Amarna Letters, a cache of clay tablets originating in the central city’s records office, was one of the most significant discoveries made at Tell el-Amarna, and it is considered one of the world’s most important archaeological finds. There are two more queens at Akhetaton, in addition to Nefertiti: Tiy, the king’s mother, and Kiya, a secondary bride of Akhenaton with a specific epithet that is significantly different from Nefertiti’s, and which incorporates the phrase “the much adored wife.” Although some have claimed that Akhenaton was the world’s first monotheist, the religion of the Aton is more accurately classified as monolatry, which is the worship of one deity above all others.
#5 Queen Nefertiti (1360 – 1330 B.C.E)
She was the queen of Egypt and the wife of King Akhenaton, who played an important role in the cult of the sun deity, known as the Aton. Nefertiti was a powerful figure in Egyptian history. Although Nefertiti’s parents were never identified, early Egyptologists surmised that she must have been a princess from the Mitanni kingdom because her name translates as “A Beautiful Woman Has Arrived.” The earliest known depictions of Nefertiti are found in the Theban tombs of the royal butler Parennefer and the vizier Ramose, where she is depicted with her husband. When Akhenaton’s fifth regnal year ended, the Aton had risen to the position of Egypt’s leading national god. The old state temples were demolished, and the court was relocated to Akhetaton, which was erected specifically for this purpose. Because of Nefertiti’s reliefs and statues, some historians believe she may have served as queen regnant, rather than as her husband’s consort—in other words, as his coruler rather than his spouse. A few months after Akhenaton’s 12th regnal year, one of the princesses died, three others went missing, and Nefertiti vanished without a trace. The remains of Nefertiti have never been discovered. If she had died at Amarna, it seems unfathomable that she would not have been entombed in the royal tomb of the city of Amarna. A portrait bust of Nefertiti was discovered among the ruins of the sculptor Thutmose’s Amarna studio in 1912, after the city of Amarna had been abandoned shortly after Akhenaton’s death, and Nefertiti had been forgotten until a German archaeological mission led by Ludwig Borchardt unearthed it.
#4 King Tutankhamen (1334 – 1324 B.C.E)
Tutankhamen was a king of ancient Egypt who is most known for his entire tomb, KV 62, which was discovered in the Valley of the Kings in 1922 and is now known as the tomb of Tutankhamen. During his reign, influential counselors worked to restore traditional Egyptian religion and art, which had been suppressed by his predecessor Akhenaton, who had launched the so-called “Amarna revolution” in Egypt. Despite the fact that a single black fragment originating in Akhenaton, Akhenaton’s capital city, refers to Tutankhaten as “a king’s son” in a setting comparable to that of the princesses of Akhenaton, the identity of Tutankhaten has remained a mystery. Following the death of Smenkhkare, the young Tutankhaten ascended to the throne and was united in marriage to Akhenaton’s third daughter, Ankhesenpaaton, who was most likely the eldest surviving princess of the royal line. Tutankhaten had abandoned Tell el-Amarna by his third regnal year and had relocated his home to Memphis, the administrative capital, which was located near modern Cairo. The Colonnade of the Temple of Luxor, which Tutankhamen embellished with reliefs depicting the Opet festival, an annual rite of renewal involving the king, the three chief deities of Karnak, and the local form of Amon at Luxor, is Tutankhamen’s most important extant monument. In addition to a palace built at Karnak and a memorial temple in western Thebes, both of which are now mostly gone, the Colonnade of the Tutankhamen died unexpectedly in his 19th year, without having designated an heir, and was replaced by Ay, the son of Tutankhamen. The king’s mummy was contained within a nest of three coffins, the innermost of which was made entirely of solid gold and the two outermost of which were made entirely of gold hammered over timber frames.
#3 King Ramses II (1279 – 2013 B.C.E)
Known as Ramses II in Egyptian history, he was the third ruler of the 19th dynasty of ancient Egypt, and his reign was the second-longest in the country’s history. His conflicts with the Hittites and the Libyans are well-known, but he is also well-known for his massive building projects and for the numerous colossal statues of him that can be found all around Egypt. According to the evidence, Ramses’ reputation as a great king in the eyes of his subjects, aside from his massive building operations and his well-known residential city, was built mostly on his reputation as a great soldier. The fourth year of his reign saw him lead an army north to regain the provinces that his father had been unable to win on a permanent basis during the previous three years. For the first time in history, a military expedition was sent to suppress rebellious local dynasts in southern Syria, laying the groundwork for future advances. The main expedition left for the field the next year. The Hittite stronghold at Kadesh was the organization’s ultimate goal. Following a successful crossing of the river from east to west at the ford of Shabtuna, approximately 8 miles from Kadesh, the army proceeded through a wood to emerge on the plain in front of the city. Fortunately for the monarch, during the critical moment of the battle, the Simyra task force arrived on the battlefield and connected with the main army, preventing the situation from deteriorating further.
Egyptian reputation suffered as a result of the failure to seize Kadesh, and several of the minor states of South Syria and northern Palestine under Egyptian suzerainty rebelled, forcing Ramses to reinforce the northern frontier of Egypt’s Asiatic domain before resuming his campaign against the Hittites. When he was in the eighth or ninth year of his rule, he seized a number of villages in Galilee and Amor; the following year, he was once again in control of the Al-Kalb River. Following the conclusion of the conflicts, the two countries developed friendly relations. A regular interchange of diplomatic correspondence took place; in 1245, Ramses contracted a marriage with the eldest daughter of the Hittite monarch, and it is probable that he married another Hittite princess at a later date.
#2 Queen Cleopatra VII (50-30 B.C.E)
She was an Egyptian queen who became famous in history and theatre as Julius Caesar’s lover and later as the wife of Mark Antony. Her father, Ptolemy XII, passed away in 51 BC, and she ascended to the throne alongside her two brothers, Ptolemy XIII and Ptolemy XIV, as well as her son, Ptolemy XV Caesar, to rule sequentially with them. Following the defeat of their combined forces by the Roman legions of Octavian (the future emperor Augustus), Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide, and Egypt came under the control of the Roman Empire. Cleopatra exerted significant political influence in Rome during a critical moment, and she came to embody, more than any other woman in antiquity, the prototype of the romantic femme fatale, a role that no other woman had previously played. Cleopatra was the last queen of the Macedonian dynasty, which ruled Egypt between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the acquisition of Egypt by Rome in 30 BC. She was the daughter of King Ptolemy XII Auletes, and she was destined to become the last queen of the Macedonian dynasty. The line had been established by Alexander’s general Ptolemy, who went on to become Egypt’s King Ptolemy I Soter (Ptolemy the Great).
The empress Cleopatra knew that she would require Roman assistance, and specifically Caesar’s assistance, in order to reclaim her position as queen. Both were resolved to make advantage of the other. For Caesar, it took two years to extinguish the final embers of Pompeian hostility. Ptolemy XIV, Cleopatra’s coruler, died in 44 BC, not long after she returned to Alexandria from her exile. Ptolemy XV Caesar, Cleopatra’s baby son, now reigns alongside her. When Cleopatra and Antony arrived in Alexandria, they established a society of “inimitable livers,” whose members led lives that some historians have described as dissipation and foolishness, while others have described as lives committed to the cult of Dionysus, the mysterious god. Cleopatra gave birth to twins in 40 BC, whom she named Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene. Alexander Helios was the older of the two boys. In addition to being a costly failure, the Parthian expedition and the temporary capture of Armenia were both disastrous. Antony and Cleopatra spent the winter of 32–31 BC in Greece, where they were welcomed by the people. Antony was buried by Cleopatra, who then committed suicide. Although the exact method of her death is unknown, Classical writers came to assume that she committed suicide by suffocating herself with an asp, a symbol of celestial authority. She was 39 years old and had been a queen for 22 years, as well as Antony’s consort for eleven years. It was their wish to be buried together, and the Roman Republic was buried alongside them, as both of them had wished.
#1 King Djoser (2685 – 2650 B.C.E)
Djoser was the second king of the 3rd dynasty of ancient Egypt, and he was the one who oversaw the construction of the first significant stone structure in the country. His reign, which was said to have lasted 19 years, was characterized by significant scientific advancements in the field of stone architecture. His minister, Imhotep, who was a gifted architect and physician, was later elevated to the status of a deified figure. Djoser was most likely the heir apparent to his brother’s crown. He was linked to the final ruler of the 2nd dynasty through his mother’s side of the family. The king enlisted the assistance of Imhotep in the construction of a funeral complex at aqqrah, just outside the royal city of Memphis. The revolutionary construction, which was constructed entirely of stone, was a break from the typical usage of mud bricks in conjunction with stone. The most significant advancement, however, was a total transformation of the monument’s shape from a flat-topped rectangular construction to a pyramid with six tiered levels. A huge number of limestone build
SOURCES:
- Bob Brier,P.h.D. The History of Ancient Egypt (Great Courses, 1999)
- Morris L. Bierbrier. Historical Dictionaries of Ancient Civilizations and Historical Eras. (The Scarecrow Press, 2008)