Listen my dudes Ancient Egypt existed for a really fuckass long time. Literally just Pharaonic civilization lasted 3,000 years. That’s not even including predynastic civilization and Roman rule. If you lump that in you’re looking at more like… 5,000 years.
Like. If you want a comparison of how long that is: THE YEAR IS CURRENTLY 2018. TWO THOUSAND. TWO-THIRDS OF ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PHARAONIC CIVILIZATION HAVE HAPPENED SINCE THE ‘BIRTH OF JESUS CHRIST’
We comparatively just entered the Third Intermediate Period. The Greeks will not take over for another 700~ years. Cleopatra will not be born until the year 2931.
It’s a really long time guys.
To emphasise Lex’s point, I’ll add the Pre-Dynastic/Early Dynastic/Roman time into this, because I’m a nerd and enjoy doing this.
If we take Egyptian civilisation beginning with ‘year one’ of AD time, and the Naqada period I (a-b-c) begins around 4000 BC; to get to the Early Dynastic period, and the start of a unified Egypt, we have to move forward 1000 years.
Moving 1000 years from year 1 we get to around 1000 AD and in British history, which is what I know best after Egypt (sorry guys), that’s around the time of the coronation of King Cnut (1016 AD) or in Scottish history the death of Malcolm II/Accession of Duncan I (1034 AD).
To get to the time of the building of the Great Pyramid in the Old Kingdom we move forward to around 500 years to 2586 BC. Moving 500 years on in British history gets you to 1500 AD which is about the time of the coronation of Henry VIII.
To get to the Middle Kingdom we move on 450 years to 2050 BC. Moving 450 years on from Henry VIII is 1950 AD. 1950′s Britain has a 2 year old NHS service and is at the start of the Windrush Generation of immigrants from Caribbean countries.
To get to 2018 we move forward 68 years and the NHS is dying and the Windrush Generation are both being poorly treated by the British Government. In Ancient Egypt we’ve only had 4 kings in the Middle Kingdom (up to Amenemhat I), and @rudjedet is still 20 years off being able to date Senwosret I.
So in equivalent time terms 2018 is basically only at the very beginning of the second of Egypt’s great periods.
The New Kingdom is another 500 years on from that at 1550 BC
Do that from now it’s 2518 AD
To get to the death of Tutankhamun at 1324 BC add another 226 years. That’s 2744 AD.
The Late Period starts at 664 BC, which is 660 years after the death of Tutankhamun. Add 600 years to our timeline and we’re at 3404 AD.
If we kept going like this, Alexander the Great will conquer us in 3736 AD. That’s 1718 years from now.
Cleopatra rules from 50 BC to 30 BC, which is 302 years after Alexander and therefore 2020 years away from 2018 in 4038 AD.
So I guess to reinforce that Egyptian history is a REALLY FUCKING LONG TIME is that if 2018 is only equivalent to the beginning of the Middle Kingdom we’re still over 2000 years away from the death of Cleopatra. To reach the equivalent time away from these events we have now (i.e. 2018 AD is 2012 years on from the death of Cleopatra and in the timeline I was reconstructing Cleo’s death is in 4038 AD) we have to add 2012 years to 4038 AD which takes us to the equivalent of our 2018 AD being 6050 AD.
Now you can sit there and think about how if we start at year 1 and run Ancient Egypt from its beginning to where we are now it’s 6050 years. And that’s a really really long time.
I seriously cannot emphasise how long that is
Okay, but what were they dooooing for 5000 years?
‘Modern era’ civilization has existed for only 500 years or so and we have monster trucks, nuclear cruise missiles, and internet.
Why wasn’t Egypt zipping around in FTL starships around 0 AD?
Well let’s look at this objectively shall we?
a) They started with stone tools and the modern era started with the culmination of every other invention and technological advancement made since humans discovered fire.
b) Their civilisation did not require stuff like electricity because metal tools were only developed 1000 years into their history and thus they hadn’t even created decent metal tools let alone machines. There’s no need for machines in their civilisation because there’s no need to mass produce anything that they can’t wait a month or so. It’s not like Karen in the Siwa Oasis is gonna flip her shit if that hand crafted pot takes two weeks to make. That’s just how long one of those takes to make. Create a machine for it? Why? They’ve got 15 men making these in the local workshop and demand isn’t that high for them. No need to have a mass production line.
c) No concept of time. Sure they had water clocks, but only priests had those and regular people just worked until it was done. It’s not like someone was going to leave them a 1 star review.
d) They’ve got horses? Why would they need mass transit? They’re not going anywhere in a hurry.
e) Capitalism hasn’t been invented yet
I’ve said this once, and I’ll say it again until I’m blue in the face: Do not apply modern bias and ways of thinking onto the Ancient record or you will distort it. Everything we are now as people is built on the work of the people who came before us and we cannot separate ourselves from it.
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Goldnwulf 