List of pharaohs

This is a **list of the pharaohs** of Ancient Egypt. It starts in the Early Dynastic Period, before 3100 BC. It ends with the Ptolemaic Dynasty, when Egypt became a province of Rome under Augustus in 30 BC.

The dates given are approximate. The list of pharaohs uses the dates of Ancient Egypt,  developed by the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology.

## Old lists of pharaohs
There are old lists of pharaohs which have been discovered. These are not complete:
* Palermo Stone
* Turin King List
* Manetho's book, *Aegyptiaca* (History of Egypt)
* Abydos King List
* Karnak Tablet
* South Saqqara Stone (discovered 1923, includes the Sixth Dynasty kings)
* Saqqara Tablet (discovered 1861, includes dynasties from 1–12)

Other lists can be found in Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and Eratosthenes. Two other lists are not believed to be reliable, these are the work of "the Arabic writers", and the *Book of Sothis*.

## List
In the legendary period, there were eight god kings who ruled over Egypt. The Palermo, Turin and Manetho king lists, have different names for the eight god kings.

The god kings were followed by kings who were part god and part human. The old lists are different in naming these rulers.

## Archaic period
The Archaic period includes the Early Dynastic Period, when Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt were ruled as separate kingdoms.

### Early Dynastic: Lower Egypt
Lower Egypt was the northern Nile and the Nile Delta. The list may not be complete:

### Early Dynastic: Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt was the Nile Valley, south of the Delta. The following list may not be complete (there are many more of uncertain existence):

### First Dynasty
The First Dynasty ruled from about 3150 to 2890 BC.

In the interregnum between the first and second dynasties, two short lived pharaohs may have reigned :

### Second Dynasty
The Second Dynasty ruled c. 2890–2686 BC.

## Old Kingdom
The Old Kingdom was a peak of civilisation and achievement. This was the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods which mark the high points of civilization in the Nile Valley. It began when Egypt was ruled by the Third Dynasty through the Sixth Dynasty (2686&ndash;2181 BC). Many Egyptologists also include the Memphite Seventh and Eighth Dynasties in the Old Kingdom. The Old Kingdom was followed by a period of disunity called the First Intermediate Period, or as the Egyptians called it, the "first illness."

The royal capital of Egypt during the Old Kingdom was at Memphis. This is where Djoser set up his court. The Old Kingdom is known for the large number of pyramids. These were built as tombs for the pharaohs. The Old Kingdom is called *"the Age of the Pyramids"*.

### Third Dynasty
The Third Dynasty ruled from 2686 to 2613 BC.

### Fourth Dynasty
The Fourth Dynasty ruled from 2613 to 2498 BC. It included the pharaohs who had the Great Pyramids built, Khufu (Cheops), Khafra (Chephren) and Menkaura (Mycerinus).

### Fifth Dynasty
The Fifth Dynasty ruled from 2498 to 2345 BC.

### Sixth Dynasty
The Sixth Dynasty ruled from 2345 to 2181 BC.

## First Intermediate Period
The First Intermediate Period (2181–2060 BC) is between the end of the Old Kingdom and the start of the Middle Kingdom.

The Old Kingdom rapidly collapsed after the death of Pepi II. He had reigned for 94 years, longer than any monarch in history, and died aged 100. The latter years of his reign were marked by inefficiency because of his advanced age.

The Union of the Two Kingdoms fell apart and regional leaders had to cope with the resulting famine.

Around 2160 BC, a new line of pharaohs tried to reunite Lower Egypt from their capital in Herakleopolis Magna. Another line of pharaohs at Thebes was reuniting Upper Egypt and a clash between the two rival dynasties was inevitable.

Around 2055 BC, Mentuhotep II, the son and successor of pharaoh Intef III defeated the Herakleopolitan pharaohs and reunited the Two Lands. This was the start of the Middle Kingdom.

### Seventh and Eighth Dynasties (combined)
The Seventh and Eighth Dynasties ruled from c. 2181 to c. 2160 BC. Many of the kings only ruled for a short time from  Memphis, with Egypt divided into competing regions.
This table is based on the Abydos King List dating to the reign of Seti I, and the Turin canon.

### Ninth Dynasty
The Ninth Dynasty ruled from 2160 to 2130 BC. The Turin King List has 18 kings in the Ninth and Tenth Dynasties. Of these, twelve names are missing and four are not complete. There are four known kings in the Abydos Dynasty, the order in which they ruled is unknown:

### Sixteenth Dynasty
The Sixteenth Dynasty was a native Theban dynasty. It began during the collapse of the Memphis-based 13th dynasty c. 1650 BC and finally conquered by the Hyksos 15th dynasty c. 1580 BC. The 16th dynasty only ruled over Upper-Egypt.

The 16th Dynasty may have included the pharaohs Sneferankhre Pepi III and Nebmaatre. Their chronological position is uncertain.

### Seventeenth Dynasty
The Seventeenth Dynasty was based in Upper Egypt and ruled from 1650 to 1550 BC:

The early 17th Dynasty may also have included Nebmaatre, whose dates are uncertain.

### Twenty-seventh Dynasty 
Egypt was conquered by the Persian Empire in 525 BC and ruled by the Persians until 404 BC. The Achaemenid shahs were the pharaohs in this era, forming a "Twenty-seventh" Dynasty:

### Twenty-eighth Dynasty
The Twenty-eighth Dynasty lasted only six years, from 404 to 398 BC, with one Pharaoh:

### Twenty-ninth Dynasty
The Twenty-ninth Dynasty ruled from 398 to 380 BC:

### Thirtieth Dynasty
The Thirtieth Dynasty ruled from 380 until Egypt once more came under Persian rule in 343 BC:

### Thirty-first Dynasty
Egypt again came under the control of the Achaemenid Persians. The Persian rulers from 343 to 332 BC are sometimes listed as the Thirty-first Dynasty:

### Argead Dynasty
The Macedonians under Alexander the Great brought in the Hellenistic period with his capture of Persia and Egypt. The Argeads ruled from 332 to 309 BC:

### Ptolemaic Dynasty
The second Hellenistic dynasty, the Ptolemies, ruled Egypt from 305 BC until Egypt became a province of Rome in 30 BC. If two dates overlap, that means there was a co-regency. The most famous member of this dynasty was Cleopatra VII. In modern times she is known simply as Cleopatra. She was  the consort of Julius Caesar and after Caesar's death, of Mark Antony, and had children with both of them. Cleopatra tried to create a dynastic and political union between Egypt and Rome. This failed with the assassination of Caesar and the defeat of Mark Antony. Caesarion (Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar) was the last king of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt. He reigned jointly with his mother Cleopatra VII of Egypt, from September 2, 47 BC. He was the eldest son of Cleopatra VII, and possibly the only son of Julius Caesar, after whom he was named. Between Cleopatra's death on August 12, 30 BC, up to his own death on August 23, 30 BC, he was the sole pharaoh. It is tradition that he was hunted down and killed on the orders of Octavian, who would become the Roman emperor Augustus, but there is no evidence.

## Rome
Cleopatra VII had affairs with the Roman Dictator Julius Caesar and Roman General Marc Antony. She killed herself when Antony was defeated by Octavian (later be Emperor Augustus). Egypt then became a province of Rome in 30 BC. Roman Emperors were given the title of Pharaoh, although exclusively while in Egypt. One Egyptian king-list lists the Roman Emperors as Pharaohs up to and including Decius. See the list of Roman Emperors.

## Notes
## References
* J. H. Breasted, *History of Egypt from the Earliest Time to the Persian Conquest*, 1909
* J. Cerny, 'Egypt from the Death of Ramesses III to the End of the Twenty-First Dynasty' in The Middle East and the Aegean Region c.1380-1000 BC, Cambridge University Press, 
*
* Dodson, Aidan and Hilton, Dyan. The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson. 2004. 
* Sir Alan Gardiner *Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs*, Third Edition, Revised. London: Oxford University Press, 1964. Excursus A, pp.&nbsp;71–76.
* Nicolas Grimal, A History of Ancient Egypt, (Blackwell Books: 1992)
* Murnane, William J. *Ancient Egyptian Coregencies, Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization. No. 40.* The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1977
* Michael Rice, ''Who's Who in Ancient Egypt*, Routledge 1999
* Ryholt, Kim & Steven Bardrum. 2000. "The Late Old Kingdom in the Turin King-list and the Identity of Nitocris." *Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde* **127**
* Shaw, Ian. *The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt.*, Oxford University Press, 2000.
* Shaw, Garry. *The Pharaoh, Life at Court and on Campaign*, Thames and Hudson, 2012.
* Toby A. H. Wilkinson, *Early Dynastic Egypt*, Routledge 1999, 
* Verner, Miroslav, The Pyramids - Their Archaeology and History, Atlantic Books, 2001, 
* *Egypt, History & Civilisation'' By Dr. R Ventura. Published by Osiris, PO Box 107 Cairo.

## Other websites
* Egyptian chronology site 
* Egyptian Royal Genealogy 
* Manetho and the King Lists  Review of different primary king lists
* Chronology Table - 0 Dynasty&History Period, by Dariusz Sitek  Multi-pages of list of pharaohs in different king lists, without the god kings, in Egyptian hieroglyphs and English
* Egyptian Journey 2003: History: King Lists Hyperlink texts of the Manetho, Abydos & Turin king lists, without the god-kings
* Digital Egypt for Universities 
* List of all female Pharaohs