Predynastic
6000 BCE to 3100 BCE
Farming settlements along the Nile consolidate into two kingdoms.
Religion
Local animal deities and fetish standards. Horus and Set are already present as the gods of rival territories.
Timeline
Three thousand years of revision.
A god does not mean the same thing in the Old Kingdom and under Rome, which is why every entry on this site carries a period. Dates before the Late Period are approximate and disputed by decades or more; this uses conventional middle chronology.
Drawn to scale, which is the point: the Predynastic occupies nearly half the bar, and the pyramid age that dominates every popular account is the short block near the middle.
Early Dynastic
3100 BCE to 2686 BCE
Unification under the first dynasties; writing and the royal titulary appear.
Religion
Kingship is bound to Horus. A Second Dynasty king, Peribsen, takes the Set animal instead, which is either theological dispute or civil war.
Old Kingdom
2686 BCE to 2181 BCE
The pyramid age. A centralised state at its most confident.
Religion
Solar religion dominant; Ra supreme from the Fifth Dynasty. The Pyramid Texts are inscribed for kings alone.
First Intermediate Period
2181 BCE to 2055 BCE
Central authority collapses; regional governors rule independently.
Religion
Funerary texts spread beyond the king. Osiris begins his rise as the god of anyone who can pay for the rites.
Middle Kingdom
2055 BCE to 1650 BCE
Reunification from Thebes; a classical age for Egyptian literature.
Religion
Osiris ascendant; Abydos becomes a pilgrimage site. Coffin Texts democratise the afterlife further.
Second Intermediate Period
1650 BCE to 1550 BCE
Hyksos rulers control the Delta; Egypt is divided.
Religion
Set is identified with the Hyksos storm god and worshipped at Avaris, which sets up his later reputation.
New Kingdom
1550 BCE to 1069 BCE
Empire. Egypt's greatest territorial extent and wealth.
Religion
Amun-Ra as state god with an enormously wealthy priesthood. Akhenaten's Aten reform interrupts it for roughly two decades and is then erased. The Book of the Dead is in wide use.
Third Intermediate Period
1069 BCE to 664 BCE
Fragmentation, Libyan and then Kushite rule.
Religion
Set is progressively vilified and his images defaced. Animal cults expand enormously.
Late Period
664 BCE to 332 BCE
Renaissance under the Saite kings, then Persian conquest.
Religion
Archaising revival of Old Kingdom forms. Isis grows toward the universal goddess she becomes under Rome.
Ptolemaic and Roman
332 BCE to 395 CE
Greek then Roman rule. Alexandria becomes a Mediterranean capital.
Religion
Greek and Egyptian gods are systematically identified with each other. Serapis is created as a deliberate synthesis. The cult of Isis spreads across the empire, and the last hieroglyphic inscription is carved at Philae in 394 CE.