The ancient kingdom of Egypt lay along the fertile valley of the Nile River in northeastern Africa. For nearly three millennia, the Egyptian pharaohs (kings) ruled one of the ancient world's richest and most powerful nations. So long was Egypt's history that modern writers measure its time not in years but in dynasties: clans that ruled the country for decades and, in some cases, for more than a century. The history of ancient Egypt includes thirty-one dynasties and the reigns of hundreds of monarchs, as well as a "predynastic" period of Egyptian civilization that began thousands of years before the first king unified the country.

The Unification of Egypt and the Old Kingdom

According to legend, a ruler named Menes was the first to unite the rival lands of Lower (northern) and Upper (southern) Egypt, an event that historians date...