Abydos, Valley of the Kings

After all these years, I find myself back in Egypt, retracing steps I took long ago in Cairo, wandering among the Pyramids of Giza. Much of that history belongs to the Old and Middle Kingdoms, when Memphis served as the capital and pharaohs were busy constructing pyramids that continue to define Egypt to this day. This time, however, I’m heading further down—or shall I say up, given that the Nile flows north while I’m travelling south—to arrive at the ancient city of Abydos, located on the west bank of the Nile in Upper Egypt. Interestingly, Upper Egypt is actually in the south and Lower Egypt in the north—a subtle confusion explained by the direction of the river.

Abydos, or as the Egyptians called it, Abdju, is one of the oldest cities in Egypt. It was settled around 3,300 BC, well before the Predynastic Period. From early on, it was used as a burial ground for some of the first pharaohs, including Narmer, who founded the dynastic period and unified Upper and Lower Egypt. Over time, Abydos also became a major place of worship and the cult centre of Osiris, the god of the afterlife.

One fascinating discovery occurred in 2021 when archaeologists came upon what seems to be an industrial-scale brewery. Dating from around 3,000 BC, roughly the time of Narmer, it’s estimated that the brewery could have produced about 22,000 litres in a single batch and was likely used not only for recreational purposes but also for rituals and funerary events. I could just about imagine Narmer celebrating Egypt’s unification with a pint of beer.

Not far from the brewery, and tucked behind the temple of Seti I, lies the Osireion, a mysterious subterranean structure built deliberately below the temple’s foundations. The stonework is astonishingly precise and polished, and the sheer size of the blocks makes you wonder how they were moved and fitted together with such accuracy. Its shadowed chambers have an almost otherworldly atmosphere, a space designed to bridge the living world and the realm of the afterlife. The Osireion shows just how obsessed the Egyptians were with eternity. Death, worship, and the hope of rebirth were inseparably intertwined.

To place these sites in context, it helps to have a broad understanding of Egypt’s dynastic history. Over 3,000 years, Egypt had 31 dynasties and roughly 180 pharaohs, though pinning down a complete list is not possible because of co-rulers, disputed claims and fragmented records. Within all of that, the three Kingdoms stand out, each separated by periods of decentralisation known as Intermediary Periods:

• The Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BC) – the age of the pyramids, when pharaohs commissioned large-scale tombs to assert their power and ensure their place in the afterlife.

• The Middle Kingdom (c. 2055–1650 BC) – after a period of decentralisation, Egypt was reunified under central rule, strengthening both the state and its monuments.

• The New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC) – Egypt reached its height of wealth and power, remembered for ambitious military campaigns, vast monuments, and famous rulers.

After that, things became more fragmented, with foreign influences, competing dynasties, and, later, the Ptolemaic Greek rulers, until Egypt eventually came under the Roman Empire. Because of this, the three Kingdoms remain the most iconic periods of pharaonic Egypt.