tour 1 of 14
Egypt in the Old Kingdom
Egypt in the Old Kingdom
The pyramids and tombs of Egypt's Old
Kingdom (Third to Sixth Dynasties, about 2686-2181 BC), with their
magnificent reliefs, paintings, statues and stelae, have often been
seen as the epitome of the whole of ancient Egypt. Indeed, if the
Early Dynastic period was the formative period in which the bases
of Egyptian civilization were firmly established, the Old Kingdom
was when it came of
age.
From the Fourth
Dynasty, the administration of the country was highly organised,
controlled by civil servants from the royal residence at Memphis,
where the king was supreme. The efficiency of the administration is
no better exemplified than in the building of the pyramids: it is
estimated that the Great Pyramid when complete contained about
2,300,000 blocks of stone of an average weight of 2½
tons, all of which had to be transported from quarry to
site.
This tour features
objects from the period in the British Museum's collection,
including remains of the fabric of the early royal pyramids,
architectural elements and sculpture from the tombs of the
officials that ran the country and a papyrus from one of the most
important adminstrative archives of the
period.