Where do dynasties come from?
The concept of dynasties, so central to our description of the history of Egypt, go back to an Egyptian priest called Manetho, who in the early 3rd century BC wrote a history of Egypt in Greek. He divided the kings up into groups which he called dynasties; the use of that (Greek) word was no doubt influenced by its use to describe Greek ruling families. Manetho’s work does not survive in the original, but rather in excepts in the works of other ancient writers, such as Africanus and Josephus. Thus we cannot be sure how accurate what we have is. Much ink has been spilled in trying to relate Manetho’s often garbled records to what we have from more ancient sources. It could be that he worked from a king list, and made arbitrary divisions where he got to the bottom of pages or the like. It is pretty clear that his dynasties do not always relate to different families on the throne. For example, in family terms, links can be traced from the 1st right through to the end of the 5th. Also, the
