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Facts About Ancient Egypt They Didn’t Teach In School

Khalid Elhassan October 29, 2023 31 min

Egyptian - The Great Pyramids of Giza, as they would have looked when newly built — The Great Pyramids of Giza, as they would have looked when newly built. Quora

Ancient Egypt’s Last Dynasty Was a Seriously Weird Family

Egyptian - Ptolemy I Soter, founder of the Ptolemaic Dynasty — Ptolemy I Soter, founder of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. Flickr

Few ruling families have been as dysfunctional, perverse, or given to more intra-familial strife, than the Ptolemaic Dynasty, which ruled Egypt from 323 to 30 BC. All fifteen of the dynasty’s kings were named Ptolemy, numbered I through XV. Of the Ptolemaic queens, there were seven Cleopatras, and four Berenices.

The family had a tradition of familial marriages, mostly with brothers marrying sisters, with the occasional uncle-niece and nephew-aunt weddings, and at least one possible mother-son marriage, thrown into the mix. In addition to marrying their close relatives, the Ptolemies were also into murdering each other, and history abounds with Ptolemies killing their brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, and even mothers.

The Ptolemaic Empire at the end of the third century, BC. Livius

The dynasty’s founder, Ptolemy I Soter, Greek for “Ptolemy the Savior” (367 – 282 BC), was a Macedonian general and close companion of Alexander the Great. After Alexander’s death, Ptolemy was one of the three Diadochi, or successors, who carved up Alexander’s empire amongst themselves. Ptolemy ended up taking Egypt as his share. There, he set himself up as king, or pharaoh. His descendants and heirs became the Ptolemaic Dynasty, which ruled Egypt for three centuries, until Queen Cleopatra VII’s suicide and the annexation of Egypt to the Roman Empire in 30 BC.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.