With a history that spans three millennia, a splitting up into shorter periods is indispensable. To this end, two systems are in use. The oldest is that of an Egyptian priest from the 3rd century BC, called Manetho. At the request of one of the earlier Ptolemaic kings, he wrote a history of Egypt. Unfortunately, his work has been lost: it's now only known from quotations and excerpts in the works of other writers. From these we learn that Manetho divided the history of Egypt into 30 dynasties. We still use this framework today, with very few corrections.

The other system is that of modern historians, who split the history of ancient Egypt into periods of more or less cultural bloom and political stability. The backbone of this system is the sequence of Old , Middle and New Kingdom, interspersed with so-called Intermediate Periods. The Kingdoms are characterized by major building activities and a flourishing of the arts. The Intermediate Periods are either periods of internal strife, resulting in political and artistic regionalism - or periods of foreign domination.

At the beginning and the end of this sequence, we need to insert a few more epochs: Early Dynastic at the beginning, Late Period and Hellenistic Period at the end. The Early Dynastic Period saw the emergence of the Egyptian state; in the arts it was characterized by a process of trial-and-error, and a strong tendency towards codification. Both the Late and the Hellenistic Period witnessed again important building activities, and a reviving of the arts.

Manetho's original work ended with Nectanebo II: the last king of the 30^th dynasty. This means that he left out the relatively short second Persian occupation, the conquest by Alexander the Great and the ensuing dynasty of the Ptolemies. In Manetho's day and age, one may well have regarded everything after Nectanebo II to be "the modern", as opposed to "history". Later excerpists of Manetho however added a 31^st dynasty, for the second Persian period. As this turns out to be very convenient (it makes it easier to define the Late Period), we will here follow that approach.

The Manethonian system of dynasties does not neatly coincide with the modern system of periods: the beginning of the Middle Kingdom falls mid-way in the 11th dynasty - in fact: it falls mid-way in the rule of one king: Mentuhotep II. In addition to this, there is some disagreement on how several of the dynasties should be allocated to the periods:

• The 3^rd dynasty. This is by some considered part of the Early Dynastic Period, on account of its still rather archaic art. Looking at the important building activities in stone that start already during this dynasty, it seems more logical however to regard it as part of the Old Kingdom.

• The 7^th dynasty. The general opinion now is, that this dynasty never existed. Manetho speaks of "70 kings that ruled [in total] for 70 days". It seems very unlikely indeed that we would ever find traces of such a "dynasty". However, a short but frantic period, as Manetho seems to indicate, would fit in extremely well at the start of the First Intermediate Period.

• The 8^th dynasty. There was an 8^th dynasty (we know at least some of the names of these kings), they resided in Memphis, and they were the only ones to claim the title of king in Egypt at that time. On account of these facts, some prefer to see them as the last dynasty of the Old Kingdom.
  On the other hand, they appear not no have been in control of the whole land: local potentates had not yet assumed royal titles for themselves, but considered themselves independent nonetheless. This means that the conditions of the First Intermediate Period with respect to political regionalism were already in place. What scant physical remains there are do not impress in artistic value either. For these reasons, I prefer to assign this dynasty to the FIP.

• The 13^th dynasty. The position of this dynasty is comparable to that of the 8^th. For a short time, these kings may actually still have ruled all of Egypt, but very soon local kinglets in the Delta region broke free (forming the so-called 14^th dynasty). As again the archeological record is unimpressive to say the least, a classification into the Second Intermediate Period is warranted.

• The 25^th dynasty. This dynasty (the Nubian dynasty) is sometimes regarded as the last of the Third Intermediate Period. Against this appraisal speaks that (from Shabaka onwards), it clearly ruled all of Egypt, and that it saw a strong and interesting upsurge in the quality of the arts. One aspect about the 25^th that would support an allocation to the TIP is, that its rulers were not indigenous: they came from Nubia. But as they were thoroughly egyptianized, they certainly looked on themselves as true, native Egyptians. Still, mainly on account of the revival of the arts, I am inclined to consider them part of the Late Period.

Another matter is, how to put actual dates to the periods and dynasties. 
Two important (recent) proposals for a complete timeline for ancient Egypt are the following:

• Baines and Malek (1980), in "Atlas of Ancient Egypt".

• Von Beckerath (1997), in "Chronologie des pharaonischen Ägypten".

An important difference between the two systems is in the way they present the degree of uncertainty involved. Baines & Malek give definite dates, with an indicated margin of error as follows (Atlas, 36):

• For the beginning of the OK: 150 years (+/- 75 years).

• For dates in the NK: 10 years.

• From 664 BC onwards: 0 years.

Von Beckerath gives for the whole period of Early Dynastic until the end of the First Intermediate Period all dates with a margin of error of 50 years. From the beginning of the Middle Kingdom, his dates generally have a margin of no more then 6 years (+/- 3 years).
To make the figures of both systems comparable, those of Von Beckerath have been restated, selecting for the period of ED-FIP the most conservative (= the less old) estimate.

On account of astronomical data, several dates in the Middle Kingdom can be pinpointed with a precision of about +/- 10 years. As the length of the Old Kingdom (from 3rd till 6th dynasty) is relatively certain, the main remaining issues in ancient Egyptian chronology are now (as they have been for some time) the length of the Early Dynastic Period, and that of the First Intermediate Period.

To get a feel for the degree of (un)certainty in the current insights, both the proposal of Von Beckerath and that of Baines and Malek are presented in the table below. As you can see, it is mainly in the duration of ED and FIP, that both systems disagree.

There is something to be said for the approach of Manetho, who lets the history of ancient Egypt end with Nectanebo II: the last indigenous king of Egypt. On the other hand, the Ptolemies - although not Egyptians - were the last kings of Egypt in the pharaonic tradition. That is why it is fairly common to let the history of ancient Egypt end with the dramatic suicide of Cleopatra VII, in 30 BC. Then, Egypt finally becomes a province of the Roman Empire. The Roman emperors continue to commission the building of temples for the Egyptian gods, and their names are written in hieroglyphs. But they rule from afar: the Egyptians no longer have a king in their midst.

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