A southern king, Scorpion, made the first attempts to conquer the northern kingdom around 3200 B.C. Neolithic (late Stone Age) communities in northeastern Africa exchanged hunting for agriculture and made early advances that paved the way for the later development of Egyptian arts and crafts, technology, politics and religion (including a great reverence for the dead and possibly a belief in life after death).Īround 3400 B.C., two separate kingdoms were established near the Fertile Crescent, an area home to some of the world’s oldest civilizations: the Red Land to the north, based in the Nile River Delta and extending along the Nile perhaps to Atfih and the White Land in the south, stretching from Atfih to Gebel es-Silsila. Images and sculptures of Nefertiti depict her famous beauty and role as a living goddess of fertility. 5000-3100 B.C.)įew written records or artifacts have been found from the Predynastic Period, which encompassed at least 2,000 years of gradual development of the Egyptian civilization.ĭid you know? During the rule of Akhenaton, his wife Nefertiti played an important political and religious role in the monotheistic cult of the sun god Aton. Building Egypt's Largest Pyramids Predynastic Period (c.