When did ancient Egypt begin?
List of ancient great powers
Ancient Egypt was one of the world's first civilizations, with its beginnings in the fertile Nile valley around 3150 BC. Ancient Egypt reached the zenith of its power during the New Kingdom (1570–1070 BC) under great pharaohs. Ancient Egypt was a great power to be contended with by both the ancient Near East, the Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa. The empire expanded far south into Nubia and held wide territories across the ancient Near East. The combination of a fertile river valley, natural borders that made an invasion unfeasible, and a military able to rise to the challenge when needed, turned Egypt into a major power. It was one of the first nations to have a system of writing and large scale construction projects. However, as neighboring civilizations developed militaries capable of crossing Egypt's natural barriers, the Egyptian armies were not always able to repel them and so by 1000 BC Egyptian influence as an independent civilization waned.
History of ancient Egypt
By 2160 BC, a new line of pharaohs, the Ninth and Tenth Dynasties, consolidated Lower Egypt from their capital in Heracleopolis Magna. A rival line, the Eleventh Dynasty based at Thebes, reunited Upper Egypt, and a clash between the rival dynasties was inevitable. Around 2055 BC, the Theban forces defeated the Heracleopolitan pharaohs and reunited the Two Lands. The reign of its first pharaoh, Mentuhotep II, marks the beginning of the Middle Kingdom.