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Founded the 4th Dynasty, Egypt's great age of pyramid building.

Commissioned the Great Pyramid at Giza, the largest pyramid ever built.

Built the second-largest pyramid at Giza.

Reigned 21 years as one of the few female pharaohs.

Led 17 successful military campaigns.

Introduced Atenism — exclusive worship of the sun disk.

Restored the cult of Amun after the Amarna heresy.

Reigned 66 years — one of the longest in Egyptian history.

Re-established Egyptian control over Canaan and Syria.

Ruled Egypt for 21 years as the last active pharaoh.

Great Royal Wife of Amenhotep III for thirty-eight years and one of the most powerful queens in Egyptian history.

Excavated the Great Sphinx from drifting sand and erected the Dream Stele between its paws.

Mother of Pharaoh Thutmose IV; elevated to King's Mother and Great Royal Wife retrospectively.

Mother of Pharaoh Thutmose III, the great empire-builder of the 18th Dynasty.

Designed the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara — the world's first monumental stone building.

Great Royal Wife of Akhenaten and co-leader of the Amarna religious revolution.

Unified Upper and Lower Egypt.

Built the third and smallest of the Giza pyramids.

Chief royal wife of King Menkaure.

The iconic eleven-kilogram solid-gold funerary mask of the boy king Tutankhamun, inlaid with lapis, carnelian and turquoise.

The gilded wooden shrine, guarded at each corner by a slender goddess in high relief, that contained the four miniature gold coffins holding Tutankhamun's organs.

A dual seated statue of Pharaoh Thutmose IV alongside his mother Queen Tiaa, the two depicted at the same scale to elevate the king's mother to co-equal royal status.

A seated portrait statue of Queen Isis, mother of Thutmose III, dedicated by her son after he took the throne from Hatshepsut.

A small but extraordinary portrait head of Queen Tiye, Great Royal Wife of Amenhotep III, sculpted in painted yew wood with silver and gold inlays — the unflattering, sharp-featured face is one of the most lifelike royal portraits to survive from Egypt.

One of the most famous Old Kingdom Egyptian statues — a painted limestone figure of an unnamed scribe, cross-legged with a papyrus on his lap, with strikingly lifelike inlaid eyes of rock crystal in copper rims. Featured on the Egyptian 200 EGP banknote.

The Osiride colossi from the upper court of Hatshepsut's mortuary temple — the female pharaoh sculpted as the god Osiris, in male royal regalia, in painted limestone.

The oldest intact wooden ship in the world — Khufu's 43-metre cedar funerary or solar boat, assembled from over 1,200 pieces sewn together with ropes through drilled holes.

The founding document of Egyptian civilisation — a ceremonial slate palette c. 3100 BCE showing King Narmer wearing both crowns and unifying Upper and Lower Egypt.

The most celebrated surviving statue of the Old Kingdom — Khafre on a lion-pawed throne, with the falcon-god Horus folded behind his head as a living crown.

A 73-metre-long limestone Sphinx with a king's head on a lion's body, carved from the Giza bedrock around 2530 BCE — likely Khafre fused with the lion-god Horemakhet.

A set of five intricately carved greywacke triads showing Menkaure flanked by Hathor and a personification of an Egyptian province — Old Kingdom sculpture at its peak.

The longest, deepest, and most exquisitely decorated tomb in the Valley of the Kings — Seti I's burial place, with painted low-relief covering every surface.

One of the largest and most-visited tombs in the Valley of the Kings — built for Ramesses V and finished by Ramesses VI, covered floor to ceiling with the Books of the Underworld.

Hidden at the back of a cliff valley, the cartouche-shaped burial chamber of Thutmose III is decorated with the full text of the Amduat written as a giant unrolled papyrus.

Shrew sarcophagus-On display 1 is an ancient Egyptian sculpture dating to 1000 BCE. Worked in bronze. Today it is held in the collection of the Cantonal Museum of Archeology and History.

man with sickle is an ancient Egyptian sculpture dating to 650 CE. Worked in tamarix wood. Today it is held in the collection of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities of the Louvre.

Statue of Nectanebo I (M.A.N. 1978/71/1) is an ancient Egyptian sculpture dating to 3 BCE. Worked in granite. Today it is held in the collection of the National Museum of Archaeology.

THE NETHERWORLD Afterlife played an important role in the ancient Egyptian beliefs. The River Nile as well as the agricultural cycle had contributed to their beliefs about rebirth and resurrection.

Sehel Island is one of the largest islands on the Nile, located upstream from the First Cataract in Aswan region. It contained a quarry for the mining of granite, the hardest stone used in ancient Egypt.

The Synagogue is attributed to the Cordoban Jewish Moses ben Maimon, who was born in 1135 AD in Cordoba, Andalusia, and died in Egypt in 1204 AD.

Dating back to the 4th century BC, Athribis was founded relatively late in comparison to many other ancient Egyptian sites. Its temple is located to the west of the settlement with mud brick houses, which has yet to be excavated.

The site gets its name from Arabic kum ‘mound’, a term found in the names of many archaeological sites, and ‘Ombo’, which ultimately derives from ancient Egyptian Nubt, interpreted as meaning ‘the golden (city).’ The city’s temple is dedica

The Temple of Isis is located on the eastern bank of Aswan Governorate, next to the eastern fence of the city.

This beautiful and remarkably well-preserved monument is the largest free-standing temple in Lower Nubia. It was built during the reign of Augustus (30 BC–14 AD), the first Roman emperor.

painting by Paolo Frosecchi

The temple of Bastet is one of the main cult temples of the goddess "Bastet" in the Old Kingdom, which was associated with fertility and often acted as a protective deity. Originally, Bastet was depicted as a lioness, and later as a cat.

painting by Enzo Sozzo

The Beni Hasan cemetery is located in one of the most fertile regions of Egypt. This site includes some of the most impressive tombs of the Middle Kingdom. Its rich and well-preserved tombs attest the economic prosperity that it enjoyed.

The so-called Tomb of the Two Brothers is among the largest and most magnificently decorated in Saqqara.

The number of wooden statues that survived from ancient Egypt is very small, compared to their stone counterparts. The reasons behind this are that the quality of local wood was poor.