civilizations of that period.

Thus the land of Egypt expanded into the Egyptian Empire and the
culture of Egypt (its language, its ideas, its artifacts, its
institutions) expanded far beyond the boundaries of Egyptian political
authority and established Egyptian civilization in parts of Africa, Asia
and Europe.

The era of Egyptian civilization was divided into two periods by an
invasion of the Hyksos, nomadic leaders who moved into Egypt, ruled it
for a period and later were expelled and replaced by a new Egyptian
dynasty.

The fourth period of Egypt's experiment with civilization was that of
decline. From a position of political supremacy and cultural ascendancy
Egyptian influence weakened politically, economically, ideologically and
culturally until the year of the Persian Conquest, 525 B.C., when Egypt
became a conquered, occupied, provincial and in some ways a colonial
territory.

Egyptian civilization can be summed up in three sentences. It covered
the greatest time span of any civilization known to history. Its
monuments are the most massive. Its records, chiefly in stone, picture
massed humans directed for at least thirty centuries toward providing a
satisfying and rewarding after-life for a tiny favored minority of its
population. To achieve this result, the natural resources of three
adjacent continents were combined and concentrated into the Nile Valley
through an effective imperial apparatus that enabled the Egyptians to
exploit the resources and peoples of adjacent Africa, Asia and Europe
for the enrichment and empowerment of the rulers of Egypt and its