The 18th Dynasty, which lasted from about 1550 to 1292 BC, was the longest dynasty in Egyptian history .
Engraving of King Tut and pharaoh Ankhesenamun. (Photo: Alamy).
Ancient Egypt was ruled by a series of pharaohs for millennia. Historians divide this period into several dynasties, in which the kings were related by blood or occupied the throne of the previous person . Egypt’s 18th dynasty, which lasted about 250 years, was the longest . Scientists estimated the time of the 18th Dynasty by analyzing a series of records and dating carbon isotopes, according to Live Science .
The 18th Dynasty began around 1550 BC, when Ahmose overthrew the Hyksos, a people of Asian origin that ruled ancient Egypt for more than a century. The pharaohs who succeeded Ahmose expanded the territory of Egypt into a kingdom stretching from present-day Sudan to Syria. Among the 18 kings of the 18th Dynasty was Tutankhamun or King Tut , the pharaoh whose tomb was intact discovered by the archaeological team from England in 1922.
Historians usually divide the history of Egypt into 30 dynasties . Although the 18th Dynasty is the longest as described by Manetho, who wrote history in Greek in the 3rd century BC, the period of Greek and Roman rule over Egypt was longer. The period of Greek rule over Egypt began in 332 BC, when Alexander the Great invaded the country. Before that, the area was under Persian control. After Alexander died in 323 BC, his kingdom fell and Ptolemy, one of Alexander’s generals, became king of Egypt. Descendants of Ptolemy continued to rule Egypt for nearly 300 years until the death of Queen Cleopatra in 30 BC.
After Cleopatra’s death, the Roman emperor Augustus incorporated Egypt into a province of the Roman Empire. Although the Roman emperors rarely visited Egypt, the artwork shows that they were considered pharaohs. When the Western Roman Empire fell in 476, the Eastern Roman Empire, with its capital at Constantinople, continued to control Egypt until 646.