Histories of Egypt

In the 3rd century B.C., when the Greeks already were dominating Egypt, a native priest called Manetón wrote a history of his country in the one that it was naming period predinástico to the prehistoric epoch, and it was dividing the Egyptian leaders in dynasties, counting a total of thirty that happened for three thousand years.

This document was constituting the principal source of information about the history of Egypt, but in the year 1798, a soldier of the French army of Napoleon Bonaparte found in the zone of the delta of the Nile Rosetta's so called stone (this way baptized by the name of the people where it revealed itself), that was containing an inscription in three forms of writing, two in Egyptian language and one in Greek language. The French investigator Jean Francois Champollion found the key to decipher the Egyptian writing. The above mentioned discovery constituted the base of the science that studies this civilization, named Egyptology.

A woman who was a Pharaoh

During the New Kingdom, the great expansion of the Egyptian empire was carried out by the Pharaohs' only dynasty that governed approximately 250 years. Only in two occasions, during the fecund history of this family tebana, tensions and crisis took place. The first one was a product of the ambition of a terrible woman, the queen widow Hatshepsut. After the death of his husband, in 1504 B.C. approximately, Hatshepsut turned into regent of his young woman step-son and nephew, Tutmosis III. Once installed in the throne, Hatshepsut assumed the functions, the badges and even the vestments of a Pharaoh, and governed for almost twenty years.

One of the most notable events of Hatshepsut's pacific reign was a naval expedition to Somali lands, of which they returned with myrrh and incense, and also with ivory, ebony, skins of panther and gold, the exotic goods of the interior of Africa. The expedition was commemorated by reliefs in Hatshepsut's funeral temple in Tebas.