This period of extended economic and political unrest and devastating climate changes, ended with Egypt losing sovereignty over most of its territory and becoming a province within the vast Persian Empire. With hundreds of thousands of its people dead, the Egyptian public was increasingly hostile towards with both their political and their religious leaders. The thirteenth dynasty started circa 1795 BCE and lasted 150 years. To a start its regents followed the same system as the previous dynasty, despite this there were almost no significant long-term rulers — which also meant no big monuments. Tuthmosis was followed by his son Tuthmosis II. He married his half-sister Hatschepsut, with whom he had a daughter. His only son was also named Tuthmosis. After a number of short years, with his son still underage, Tuthmosis II died. Pharaoh Tuthmosis III, therefore, had 20 years in front of him without practically no real power. In his stead, Hatschepsut established herself as both the mother of the Pharaoh and daughter of Amun — making her a kind of female Horus. Egypt during her governance prospered, but when the Pharaoh finally received power — either through force or his mother’s death — he made major efforts to delete his predecessor’s impact. The fifth dynasty started after Shepseskaf, it is unclear what happened, but we do know that Userkaf took power and founded the dynasty. Because of this most king stopped want to build these gigantic monuments, focusing more on smaller ones. Another thing built around Abusir was sun temples — a phenomenon special to this dynasty. In times of bounty, the uneven distribution of economic benefits within ancient Egyptian society was papered over. However as the state’s power was eroded, this economic disparity undermined ancient Egypt’s social cohesion and pushed its ordinary citizens to the brink.

To a start, Psammeticho was nothing more than an Assyrian puppet. But when the Assyrian’s started a conflict with neighboring Babylonia Egypt was left to its faith. By 656 BCE Egypt was once more an independent kingdom. With a literary flair and a sense for a story well told, Mr. Wilkinson offers a highly readable, factually up-to-date account.”— The Wall Street Journal The Maadi culture (also known as Buto Maadi) is the most important Lower Egyptian prehistoric culture. Copper was used, pottery was simple and undecorated, and people lived in huts. The dead were buried in cemeteries.There was a major shift in religion during this dynasty too. While the Sun God Re was the most important prior, the deity Amun (/Amon) took that importance. This can be seen in the name Amenemhet which translates to “Amun in the top”. Akhenaten's successor was Tutankhamun (1336-1327 BCE) who was in the process of restoring Egypt to its former status when he died young. His work was completed by Horemheb (1320-1295 BCE) who erased Akhenaten's name from history and destroyed his city. Horemheb succeeded in restoring Egypt but it was nowhere near the strength it had been prior to Akhenaten's reign. Yet if this was reason enough for the failure of Egyptian writers to indulge in the kind of salacious detail that the Greeks and the Romans so relished, then there was also a broader cultural explanation. A blurring of the individual with the universal lay at the very heart of Egyptian ideology. Pharaoh himself was regarded less as a man than as an expression of the divine. Even those of non-royal birth came to dream of an afterlife in which they would lead an idealised version of their mortal existence. This was why art, for instance, invariably dealt in generalisations – and panglossian ones at that. No one in a tomb relief was ever shown with the worn gums endemic in a land where food was invariably seasoned with sand. The last regent of the twenty-first dynasty, Psusennes II, died without any male heir. Therefore, the throne was handed to his son-in-law Sheshonk I, who founded the twenty-second dynasty.

Egypt became prosperous and wealthy, especially under Amenophis III (1390-1352 B.C.E.), but turmoil arose when his son Akhenaten (1352-1336 B.C.E.) left Thebes, moved the capital to Akhetaten (Tell el-Amarna), and radically reformed the religion to the monotheistic Aten cult. It didn't last long. The first attempts to restore the old religion began as early as the rule of Akhenaten's son Tutankhamun (1336-1327 B.C.E.), and eventually persecution of the practitioners of the Aten cult proved successful and the old religion was re-established.After the death of Ramses III, Egypt was ruled by a string of ineffectual pharaohs also named Ramses. (Ramses XI, who died around 1070 B.C., was the last pharaoh of the New Kingdom.) Archaeological records from this period give clues to why and how Egypt entered such a rapid decline.