Nile Valley, North Africa · Early Bronze Age
Old Kingdom Egypt
The pyramid-building age of the Nile
2,686 BCE – 2,181 BCE · 505 years
The era of Egypt's great pyramid building, governed by pharaohs regarded as living gods.
Where it sits on the calendar
Government
Divine kingship
Writing system
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Estimated peak population
1,600,000
How it ended
Climate shift or drought
Traits
Monumental architecture Bronze metallurgy Irrigation agriculture Standing army Long-distance trade Astronomical record-keeping Urban planning Seafaring Iron metallurgy Codified law
How Old Kingdom Egypt ended
Centralized rule weakened amid prolonged low Nile floods and regional famine.
See other civilizations that fell the same way →Notable for
- Pyramid construction at Giza
- Solar calendar refinement
- Centralized granary state
Who else was alive at the same time
6 other civilizations in this dataset overlap with Old Kingdom Egypt's 505-year span.
See every overlap involving Old Kingdom Egypt →