How did Egyptian kingdoms develop and why did they collapse?

Answer 1

The Nile River made existence for a large population possible in a desert region. Every year, the Nile would flood, bringing rich soil to the lower reaches of the river course. This allowed agriculture to flourish, as well as dictating when planting and harvesting would occur. Because the delta area produced surplus crops on a regular basis, the society in that area was fairly stable, and had leisure time for developing art and science. You also have to consider the effect that having access to large quantities of stone, especially granite, had on Egypt. This began the building of the pyramids and other large structures out of stone instead of red mud bricks.

However, in times of poor harvests cause by poor floods, food shortage invariably resulted is a detrimental social breakdown. With social breakdown came internecine struggles between various family/totem-based centers of power. To avoid this, Narmer decided to unify the fractured communities to bring order. Furthermore, the effect of food securities was duly noted thus leading to the practice of keeping highly accurate record of the flooding of the Nile relative celestial bodies, notably the star Sothis.

Let it be noted that the name Mene/Menes/Mwene means possessor or custodian. It is a title bestowed upon a king but not a name.

As Egypt emerged, from, the Predynastic Period, two power centres, associated with burials arose on the desert sands of Upper Egypt: Abydos (Abt) in the South and Saqqara in the North. At both sites large tombs from the first two dynasties proclaim the names and wealth of their royal owners. Not infrequently two tombs bear the name of the same king. Egyptologists have long debated the reason for this and. the actual location of the king's burial. Barry Kemp, an English scholar, solves this problem and most Egyptologists concur: the kings of Dynasty I are buried at Abydos and while the tombs at Saqqara, found by Emery, belong to their officials and nobles who lie buried beside Inb-hd, the "White Wall" GREAT HOUSE (this is a correction of a clear and very obvious misinterpretation of the term INB-HD. Inb is house and hd is a consonantal skeleton for HuDu/HuRu = great/big. Thus, Inb/Imba Hd/Huru simply means the seat of the nation's government or royal residence), which is the Archaic capital of Egypt.

Meanwhile, most kings of Dynasty II are buried at Saqqara, at a location now under the upper temple of Unas (Unesu = he is with us). The exceptions are the last two kings of the Dynasty, Peribsen and Kh'asekh-emwy, who 'returned to Abydos for burial.

All of these tombs mark a significant change in construction from those of the Pre-Dynastic Period when tombs were simple oval or rectangular graves. Now the body lies in a wooden coffin with a separate chamber for grave goods, and both rest-beneath a mud-brick superstructure consisting of a flat roof and vertical walls. Attached to the exterior is a simple emplacement or small chapel used for the cult of the dead. This new type of tomb is called a mastaba, a modern Arabic word meaning, "bench."

After the first unification, the state collapsed as a result of social shock. The rapid change in the way of life did not match the slow cultural change. Unification brought with it what we now call urbanization, a social setting ill-suited to norms and customs established during and for rural settings. The culture shock culminated in the collapse of central authority.

It was back to fractured and warring enclaves of power, as it was before the unification. Eventually, the nation was brought under a centralized government and the anarchy of the fractured state brought under control. This brought back order and also saw the first recording of rules, injunctions and code of behaviour, which had been previously learnt by observation and imitation. This is what German Egyptologist calls Moral Literature. It is in these literary recordings, and those written during the years of chaos, that the first records of people pining for a messiah are committed to paper and stone.

The next collapse was caused by a weakened central authority such that an alien people from Asia that had sought refuge in Egypt simply seized power. These were the Hyksos. A notable Hyksos king from this era was Yakub (Jacob) Hr (El). As an alien power, a settler colonial power, it eventually faced resistance and a war of liberation by a force based at Ta-Apet (Thebes/DzaApasi).

This pattern of state collapse and revival repeated itself. However, with foreigners getting increasingly involved, the indigenous people finally lost their ability to liberate and recover their land. First came the Persians. Then the Greeks and then the Romans. It is important to bear in mind that these alien or colonial powers were very respectful of the institutions they found in place.

That is the reason the governors were seen as pharaohs and dressed accordingly. Egypt lost its throne but its ancient institutions were safeguarded until the Arabs invaded the land.

It was the Arabs that looted and finally mercilessly destroyed what had been in place for millennia. The temples and the documents on theology and science were looted and only God knows what the Arabs did with the documents , seriously. The Arab-occupation of ancient Egypt marked the end of ancient Egypt. Few of the ancient people remained on their ancestral land but under severe subjugation. The rest simply moved out of harm's way and sought refuge elsewhere.