Ancient Egyptian Map and Timeline

Ancient Egypt Unit Study

Lesson 2: We made an Ancient Egyptian map and timeline.

When studying history it's often difficult for children to comprehend when an event actually occurred. Therefore, creating a detailed timeline which includes events of today as well as past events can be very helpful. We have a large timeline which is located in our kitchen, but sometimes create additional smaller timelines when studying a topic in detail.

Timeline

Ancient Egyptian History can be divided into a few major historical time periods:

5500 BC - 2950 BC - PreDynastic Period
2950 BC - 2649 BC - Early Dynastic
2649 BC - 2125 BC - Old Kingdom
2050 BC - 2000 BC - Golden Age
1975 BC - 1539 BC - Middle Kingdom
1539 BC - 1075 BC - New Kingdom
1075 BC - 715 BC - Third Intermediate Period
715 BC - 322 BC - Late Period
322 BC - Greek and Roman Period

Our Egyptian timeline was very simple and sketched onto a single sheet of paper with colored sections to divide the major periods. As we read and learned about Egypt, events and pharaohs were added to the timeline.

Pyramid building took place during the Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom, and temple building took place during the Middle and New Kingdoms. Several interesting pharaohs lived during the New Kingdom including Thutmose I, Thutmose III, Hatshepsut, Akhenaton and Tutankhamen. Cleopatra, the last pharaoh, lived during the Greek and Roman period.

Map

The map was created by sketching the shape of the current country of Egypt onto a sheet of foam board.

Once the outline and Nile river was drawn in pencil, it was traced with permanent marker.

Next the names of a few significant cities and monuments were placed on the map:

Lower Egypt
Upper Egypt
Nubia
Giza
Memphis
Thebes
Valley of the Kings

Additional monuments and cities were added during the course of reading.




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