Ancient Egypt may be long gone, but archaeologists keep finding its treasures.
For more than 3,000 years, one of history’s greatest civilizations flourished along the winding Nile River in northeast Africa. But after Egypt fell under first Greek, then Roman, and finally Muslim control, the ancient civilization’s glories were buried under layers of these different cultures, only to surface again centuries later as archaeologists and historians embraced the study known as Egyptology.
Beginning in the 19th century, bombshell discoveries such as the Rosetta Stone and the lavish tomb of Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings, as well as the excavation of the Pyramids at Giza, opened the doors to a new understanding of ancient Egypt’s mysteries, fueling an explosion of interest—and tourism.
Egyptian Pyramids
Many of ancient Egypt’s rulers—known today as pharaohs—built themselves elaborate monuments and tombs, inscribing them with their names and achievements in hieroglyphics. Through painstaking excavations, research and translation, modern scholars have used these written records to trace Egypt’s history and divide it into three distinct periods—known as the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms—with periods of relative instability in between.
With each new tomb or secret underground chamber discovered, Egyptologists began to gain a clearer understanding of the ancient civilization’s fascination with death and the afterlife, including its highly sophisticated mummification practices. Unfortunately, looters got to many tombs centuries before modern archaeologists arrived, robbing them of gold, jewelry and other valuable goods intended to accompany the dead in their journey to the afterlife. Many of the mummies themselves had gone missing as well, making those who were found (like King Tut, Ramses II and Hatshepsut) even more valuable.
Excavations of Egypt’s ancient sites have continued steadily since the early 20th century, with each new discovery offering insight into the intricacies of a civilization that made striking advances in nearly every area of human knowledge, including art, mathematics, agriculture, engineering and written language. Even today, many tombs remain to be excavated, promising yet more amazing finds to come.
Perhaps the most recognizable symbol of ancient Egypt, these massive structures were built for three generations of pharaohs—Khufu (aka Cheops), Khafre and Menkaure—during the Old Kingdom (2575-2130 B.C.). It’s still unknown exactly how the Egyptian Pyramids were constructed, though the ancient Greek historian Herodotus estimated that 100,000 men labored for some 20 years to create the largest, the Great Pyramid, for Khufu. Over the centuries, looters broke in and removed many of their treasures; by the first modern excavation in 1880, archaeologists could only guess at the riches they had had once contained.
The Giza pyramid complex, located on the outskirts of modern Cairo, contains other marvels, including the Sphinx, a massive statue of a lion with the pharaoh Khafre’s head. In 1954, archaeologists stumbled on a nearly intact ship, measuring some 140 feet long, buried in pieces at the base of the Great Pyramid. Inscribed with the name of the pharaoh Khufu, it was apparently buried along with other grave goods; it was later excavated and went on display at the specially constructed Solar Boat Museum, just a few meters from where it was found.
The long-lost tomb of the 18th-dynasty boy pharaoh, Tutankhamen, was rediscovered by archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922. Located in the Valley of the Kings on the west bank of the Nile, Tut’s tomb had been covered by debris for some 3,000 years, protecting it from looters. Braving rumors of a curse, Carter’s team opened a tomb filled with treasures—notably Tut’s mummy, wearing a splendid gold death mask—that provided evidence of the most lavish period of Egyptian history.
In 1798, near the Egyptian town of Rashid (Rosetta), officers in Napoleon Bonaparte’s army spotted a black granite slab with writing on one side. Dated to 196 B.C., the Rosetta Stone is believed to have been created in Memphis, on behalf of the pharaoh Ptolemy V, affirming his right to rule over Egypt. Inscribed in three languages—hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek—its translation in 1822 provided the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs for the first time, shedding new light on the entire history of ancient Egypt. It has been in British possession since the end of the Napoleonic Wars, though Egypt has long requested its return.
At the outset of World War II, the French Egyptologist Pierre Montet was excavating near the New Kingdom capital of Tanis when he stumbled on a treasure-filled tomb rivaling that of King Tut. Inside, the little-known 21st-Dynasty pharaoh Psusennes I had been buried in an exquisitely detailed coffin made of solid silver, wearing a spectacular gold burial mask. The splendor of the Silver Pharaoh’s tomb raised new questions for historians, as it indicated a level of wealth and power historians had assumed pharaohs did not possess by the time Psusennes ruled Egypt, around 3,000 years ago.
After Queen Hatshepsut died around 1458 B.C., her stepson and successor, Thutmose III, had much of the evidence of her reign erased. Little was known about Egypt’s first great female leader until the late 19th century, when archaeologists decoded the hieroglyphics on her temple at Deir el Bahri in Luxor. When Howard Carter found Hatshepsut’s sarcophagus in 1903, it was empty, like most of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. But another tomb unearthed in the temple contained two coffins, one identified as that of Hatshepsut’s wet nurse. In 2007, the remains in the other coffin were identified as Hatshepsut herself, after scientists matched a molar found in a jar with the queen’s embalmed organs to a space in the mummy’s jaw. Hatshepsut’s mummy is now housed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
In the mid-1990s, a team of archaeologists uncovered a vast necropolis near Bawit, south of Cairo. An initial excavation yielded 105 mummies, some adorned with gilded masks and chest plates, others buried more simply in terracotta, plaster or linen coverings. Dubbed the “Valley of the Golden Mummies,” the ancient cemetery has since yielded hundreds of other mummies, representing various social classes; experts believe it may contain as many as 10,000 mummies in all.
Born around 1302 B.C., the 19th-dynasty pharaoh Ramses II ruled for more than six decades, ordering the construction of so many massive monuments (such as the Temples at Abu Simbel) that he ensured his legacy as ancient Egypt’s most powerful pharaoh. His tomb, originally placed in the Valley of the Kings, was later moved to avoid the threat of looting; in 1881, archaeologists discovered his mummy among many others stored in a secret cache at Deir el-Bahri. Placed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the mummy was famously issued a passport in the 1970s, when it began deteriorating quickly and had to be transported to Paris for examination and treatment for a fungal infection.
By far the most ambitious building project undertaken during the reign of Ramses II were these two stone temples, carved into a mountainside near what is now the Egyptian-Sudanese border circa 1244 B.C. At the entrance to the larger temple sat four huge statues of the pharaoh, while inside, a network of chambers were built in such a way that on two days each year, the sunlight could illuminate another statue of Ramses inside. Long abandoned, the temple remained buried in sand until 1817, when the Italian archaeologist (and former circus strongman) Giovanni Belzoni uncovered its entrance. In the 1960s, the entire temple complex was dismantled and rebuilt on higher ground, to make way for the construction of the Aswan High Dam.
In 2010, Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities announced that archaeologists had discovered the remains of a 2,200-year-old temple under the streets of modern-day Alexandria. Dedicated to Bastet, the Egyptian goddess who took the shape of a cat, the temple was built by Queen Berenice II, wife of Ptolemy III, Egypt’s pharaoh from 246–222 B.C. Cats were revered animals (and common house pets) in ancient Egypt; some 600 cat statues were found inside the temple, suggesting their veneration continued even during the Greek-speaking Ptolemaic dynasty, which ruled Egypt from the arrival of Alexander the Great in 332 B.C. to the suicide of Egypt’s last ruler, Cleopatra, in A.D. 30.
1 / 10: Ratnakorn Piyasirisorost/Getty Images
HISTORY Vault: Engineering an Empire: Egypt
Egyptian temples, fortresses, pyramids and palaces redefined the limits of architectural possibility and alerted Egypt's enemies: The world's most advanced civilization could accomplish anything.
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