PREDYNASTIC AND EARLY DYNASTIC PERIODS, ca. 3500–2575 BCE
❚The unification of Upper and Lower Egypt into a single kingdom under the rule of a divine pharaoh
occurred around 3000–2920 BCE. The event was commemorated on the earliest preserved work of
narrative art, the palette of King Narmer, which also established the basic principles of Egyptian
representational art for 3,000 years.
❚Imhotep, the first artist in history whose name is known, established the tradition of monumental
stone architecture in Egypt in the funerary complex and Stepped Pyramid he built for King Djoser
(r. 2630–2611 BCE) at Saqqara.
OLD KINGDOM, ca. 2575–2134 BCE
❚The Old Kingdom was the first golden age of Egyptian art and architecture, the time when three
pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty erected the Great Pyramids at Gizeh, the oldest of the Seven
Wonders of the ancient world. The pyramids were emblems of the sun on whose rays the pharaohs
ascended to the heavens after their death.
❚Old Kingdom sculptors created seated and standing statuary types in which all movement was
suppressed in order to express the eternal nature of pharaonic kingship. These types would dominate
Egyptian art for 2,000 years.
MIDDLE KINGDOM, ca. 2040–1640 BCE
❚After an intermediate period of civil war, Mentuhotep II (r. 2050–1998 BCE) reestablished central rule
and founded the Middle Kingdom.
❚The major artistic innovation of this period was the rock-cut tomb in which both the facade and
interior chambers were hewn out of the living rock. The fluted columns in Middle Kingdom tombs
closely resemble the columns later used in Greek temples.
NEW KINGDOM, ca. 1550–1070 BCE
❚During the New Kingdom, Egypt extended its borders to the Euphrates River in the east and deep
into Nubia in the south.
❚The most significant architectural innovation of this period was the axially planned pylon temple
incorporating an immense gateway, columnar courtyards, and a hypostyle hall with clerestory
windows.
❚Powerful pharaohs such as Hatshepsut (r. 1473–1458 BCE) and Ramses II (r. 1290–1224 BCE) erected
gigantic temples in honor of their patron gods and, after their deaths, for their own worship.
❚Akhenaton (r. 1353–1335 BCE) abandoned the traditional Egyptian religion in favor of Aton, the sun
disk, and initiated a short-lived artistic revolution in which undulating curves and anecdotal content
replaced the cubic forms and impassive stillness of earlier Egyptian art.
FIRST MILLENNIUM BCE
❚After the demise of the New Kingdom, Egypt’s power in the ancient world declined and it came
under the control of foreigners, such as the Kushite kings of Nubia and, after 332 BCE, Alexander the
Great and his Greek successors. In 30 BCE, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire.
❚The traditional forms of Egyptian art and architecture lived on even under foreign rule—for
example, in the pylon temple erected at Edfu in honor of Horus.
THE BIG PICTURE
EGYPT UNDER
THE PHARAOHS
Palette of King Narmer,
ca. 3000–2920 BCEGreat Sphinx and Pyramids, Gizeh,
ca. 2550–2475 BCETomb of Amenemhet, Beni Hasan,
ca. 1950–1900 BCEAkhenaton, Nefertiti, and three
daughters, ca. 1353–1335 BCETemple of Horus, Edfu,
ca. 237–47 BCE