The Making of Egypt

In the late 4th millennium, a state and culture recognizably pharaonic in structures rose in the Nile Valley. How was Egypt made, and how can we study the process? This seminar will examine this exceptional convergence of the development of monumental architecture, writing, canonical art, and kingship during Egypt’s formative centuries from c. 3200-2600 BC. We will study the rapid changes at the start of the First Dynasty in the context of state formation over the longer span of late-Predynastic to Old Kingdom Egypt.