The 18th dynasty of ancient Egypt, which reigned from about 1550 B.C. to 1292 B.C., was the longest lasting.
Ancient Egypt was ruled for millennia by a series of pharaohs. Historians have broken up this period into dynasties, in which the rulers were either related to one another or derived power from a predecessor.
But which dynasty lasted the longest?
The 18th dynasty of Egypt, which lasted around 250 years, is the longest ancient Egyptian dynasty. Scientists estimate the length of the 18th dynasty by analyzing written records and radiocarbon dates.
The 18th dynasty started around 1550 B.C., when the pharaoh Ahmose kicked out the Hyksos, a group originating from Asia that had ruled part of ancient Egypt for more than a century. The rulers who followed Ahmose would grow the territory that Egypt controlled, eventually expanding it to an empire stretching from modern-day Sudan to what is now Syria. Among the 18th dynasty rulers is Tutankhamun, or King Tut, a pharaoh whose intact tomb was rediscovered by a British-led archaeological team in 1922.
Historians often divide Egypt’s history into 30 dynasties.
But in fact, „the ‚dynasties‘ of Egypt are really just retrospective constructs,“ Michael Dee (opens in new tab), an associate professor of isotope chronology at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, told Live Science in an email.
