The Pharaohs Worth Knowing Before You Go

Egypt had over 170 pharaohs across roughly 3,000 years, but a handful appear constantly across the sites you'll actually visit. Khufu (Old Kingdom, ~2560 BCE) built the Great Pyramid — that's essentially everything definitively known about him from his own era; ironically, the builder of Egypt's most massive monument left almost no other trace. Hatshepsut (New Kingdom, ~1479 BCE) was one of the few women to rule as full pharaoh, not just queen consort, and had herself depicted with a ceremonial false beard in official art to assert pharaonic authority; her mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari is one of Luxor's most striking sites. Akhenaten (~1353 BCE) attempted a religious revolution, briefly replacing Egypt's entire pantheon with worship of a single sun disk deity, Aten — reversed immediately after his death by his son. That son was Tutankhamun. Ramses II (~1279 BCE, "Ramses the Great") ruled for 66 years, longer than almost any pharaoh, and built more monuments than any other ruler in Egyptian history, including Abu Simbel — largely as deliberate self-promotion, and it worked; his name and image appear at more sites than anyone else's. Knowing these names before visiting turns unlabeled statues and cartouches into a real cast of characters.