Egypt’s Old Kingdom

Abstract

This chapter explores the vivid, dynamic, and multifaceted political history of the Old Kingdom of Egypt (twenty-sixth to twenty-second centuries BC). It focuses in particular on the evolution of Egyptian society and the role of state offices and bureaucracy in defining social status. The chapter surveys the available sources and environmental constraints, including the cyclical Nile floods, before analyzing the competition for status that drove social and political change, with a particular focus on the construction of funerary monuments. The chapter pays equal attention to the royal family and the other elites of the Old Kingdom. The state’s development is contextualized in external factors such as the constantly changing environment.