The Old Kingdom of Egypt

The Old Kingdom of Egypt, roughly 2686 to 2181 BCE and spanning the Third through Sixth Dynasties, is known as the "Age of the Pyramids," the period in which ancient Egyptian kings, already ruling a unified state along the Nile, commanded the resources and administrative capacity to build the great pyramids at Saqqara, Giza and elsewhere as royal tombs intended to secure the pharaoh's divine afterlife. The Fourth Dynasty pharaoh Khufu built the Great Pyramid of Giza around 2560 BCE, the largest pyramid ever constructed and, for millennia afterward, the tallest human-made structure on Earth, while his successors Khafre and Menkaure built the neighboring pyramids and the Great Sphinx traditionally associated with the complex. The period established the core religious, artistic and administrative conventions, including the pharaoh's status as a living god and an increasingly powerful priesthood and provincial nobility, that would define Egyptian civilization for the following two and a half thousand years. The Old Kingdom collapsed around 2181 BCE amid weakening central authority, rising power of regional governors, and possibly severe drought, fragmenting Egypt into the disunited First Intermediate Period.