Ancient Egyptian history covers a continuous period of over three thousand years. To put this in perspective - most modern countries count their histories in hundreds of years. Only modern China can come anywhere near this in terms of historical continuity.

Egyptian culture declined and disappeared nearly two thousand years ago. The last vestiges of the living culture ceased to exist in AD 391 when the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I closed all pagan temples throughout the Roman Empire.

It was not until Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798 that the wonderful artefacts of the Egyptians were seen in Europe and their ancient culture began to awaken from its long slumber.