Dynasties of ancient Egypt

The 31 dynastic divisions come from the 3rd century BC Egyptian priest Manetho, whose history Aegyptiaca was probably written for a Greek-speaking Ptolemaic ruler but survives only in fragments and summaries. While widely used and useful, the system does have its shortcomings. Some dynasties only ruled part of Egypt and existed concurrently with other dynasties based in other cities. Some dynasties like the Abydos Dynasty weren't counted; the 7th might not have existed at all, the 10th seems to be a continuation of the 9th, and there might have been one or several Egyptian dynasties before what is termed the 1st Dynasty.

List of dynasties in ancient Egyptian history

Dates follow the timeline given by the University of Memphis, which is itself based on the work of Rolf Krauss. Figures have been deliberately rounded in order to avoid a misleading appearance of precision. See also the chronologies in Beckerath 1999, pp. 283–289, Bunson 2002, pp. 105–108, Shaw 2003, pp. 481–488, and Hornung, Krauss & Warburton 2006, pp. 490–495.