The current capital of Egypt is Cairo. Over the course of its history, Egypt has had many capitals. Its earliest capital was Tjenu, better known as Thinis, which may have been the capital of the hypothetical Thinite Confederacy prior to Egypt's unification. During the First, Second and Third Intermediate Periods, Egypt had multiple capitals held by rival dynasties.
Thinis was Egypt's first capital following its unification in c. 3100 BCE. The country's current capital is Cairo, and this has been the case since 972. This makes Cairo Egypt's longest-running capital city, having retained this status for over 1,050 years under the rule of six dynasties followed by the British protectorate of Egypt and the Republic of Egypt.
Alexandria was the second longest-lasting capital of Egypt, being used for the entirety of the Greco-Roman period, which lasted for 973 years. Memphis was the capital of Egypt for over 700 years and was the seat of the power for the whole of the Old Kingdom period. Thebes was used as the capital for approximately 485 years, mostly during the Middle and New Kingdoms.
List of Egyptian capitals
[edit]See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Wilkinson, Toby A.H. (2000). Early Dynastic Egypt. Abingdon: Routledge. p. 67. ISBN 0-415-26011-6.
- ^ Shaw, Ian (2003). The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press, p.279
- ^ An Introduction to the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, 2008. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. 2008.
- ^ Török, László (1998). The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan-Meroitic Civilization. Leiden: BRILL. p. 185. ISBN 90-04-10448-8.
- ^ Arnold, Dorothea (1991). "Amenemhat I and the Early Twelfth Dynasty at Thebes". Metropolitan Museum Journal. 26. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 5–48. doi:10.2307/1512902. JSTOR 1512902. S2CID 191398579.
- ^ "The Official Website of the Amarna Project". Archived from the original on 8 October 2008. Retrieved 1 October 2008.
- ^ Snape, Steven (2014). The Complete Cities of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson. p. 335. ISBN 978-0-500-77240-9.
- ^ Ian Shaw & Paul Nicholson, The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, British Museum Press, 1995. p.250
- ^ Gray, Leon (2010). The New Cultural Atlas of Egypt. Marshall Cavendish. p. 143. ISBN 9780761478775.