Egypt in 2400 BC

In the foreground is the pyramid of Userkaf, built in the -2400s. In the background is the Step Pyramid of Djoser built in the -2600s. The Great Pyramid of Giza was built in the -2500s.

Note: This is so far back in time that dates can be off by up to 80 years or so. I follow the dates in “The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt” (2008) by Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson. 

• Location: north-eastern Africa, the last 1,000 km of the Nile where ships can freely sail north of the rocky Cataracts.
• Population: about 1 million.
• Major cities: Buto, Memphis (capital), Heliopolis, Abydos.
• Language: Old Egyptian – in hieroglyphic writing.
• Religion: idol worship in temples of Ra, Hathor, Horus, Osiris, etc. Solar religion. Ra now the top god.
• Government: Djedkara, second-to-last god-king of the 5th Dynasty.
• Economy: Command economy. Wheat, barley, cattle, sheep, goats, pyramids. Gold and diorite from Nubia, copper, turquoise and malachite from Sinai, wine and oil from Palestine, cedar wood from Byblos. An Egyptian stone vase from this period was found as far away as the Greek island of Cythera.
• Currency: none.
• Transport: Nile River, sail boats, barges, donkeys, palanquin (carried by 16 men). Roads, horses, and wheel transport are rare, camels unknown.
• Technology: irrigation, mud bricks, stone blocks, copper (stiffened with arsenic, bronze not yet in common use), paper, pyramids, obelisks, glass, bee-keeping.

The last 100 years: the -2400s:

• Kings: the last four years of the 4th Dynasty and all but the last king of the 5th Dynasty:
  • 4th Dynasty: Shepseskaf.
  • 5th Dynasty: Userkaf, Sahura, Neferirkara, Shepseskara, Raneferef, Nyuserra, Menkauhor, Djedkara.
• Queens: It is possible that Khentkawes II, mother of Raneferef, ruled as queen: she is pictured wearing a uraeus cobra on her forehead, something only kings and gods usually wear.
• Pyramids are now much smaller, generally 40 to 55 metres tall, about a third of the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza. And have not held up as well, some shown to be little more than glorified mounds of rubble once they were stripped of their outer casing of white limestone. There is more art and decoration inside, though, and it is still high quality (much of it stripped away in the +1800s to feed lime kilns).
• Ra, aka Re, the god of the sun, based at Heliopolis (not far from Memphis, the capital), is now the top god. His cult has become the state religion. Most kings either have a name ending in -ra and/or build a solar temple to Ra. A temple is more than just a building – it comes with the lands and tax exemptions needed to support its priesthood.
• Obelisks become all the rage, presumably copies of the gold-tipped obelisk at Heliopolis which can been seen from the pyramids.
• The centre weakens: Not only is there a shift of power and wealth from king to temple, but governors (nomarchs) are also becoming more powerful, their office now sometimes hereditary instead of being appointed by the king. Commoners, even hairdressers, begin appearing in top positions in government. To be fair, the kings of the last century, who could build things like the Great Pyramid of Giza, were arguably way too powerful for the country’s good.

Meanwhile in Britain, brown-skinned people like the Whitehawk Woman are working on the third version of Stonehenge, now made of stone not wood.

– Abagond, +2023. 

See also:

• Egyptian century of the week
  • Egypt in 3100 BC
  • Egypt in 3000 BC
  • Egypt in 2900 BC
  • Egypt in 2800 BC
  • Egypt in 2700 BC
  • Egypt in 2600 BC
  • Egypt in 2500 BC
  • Egypt
  • Egypt: a brief history
  • Ancient Egypt
• Egyptian
  • Egyptian hieroglyphics
• Egyptian gods
  • Horus
  • Seth
  • Ra
  • Isis
  • Amun
• The British
  • The British through time: the last 10,000 years
  • Whitehawk Woman
  • Stonehenge

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