What remains of Ancient Egypt?

How do we know about Ancient Egypt?

Tourists take photos on their phones of an Ancient Egyptian building.

We know about Ancient Egypt from tombs and statues such as the pyramids, the Great Sphinx and mummies.

Studying these items is called Egyptology and the people who study them are called Egyptologists. An Egyptologist is an archaeologist who specialises in Ancient Egypt.

Watch: What remains of Ancient Egypt?

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Take a tour around some ancient Egyptian ruins

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The largest Egyptian pyramid ever built was Pharaoh Khufu’s Great Pyramid of Giza. It is the tallest pyramid that you can see in this picture. It is made from over two million stone blocks.
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The Valley of the Kings was a royal burial ground for lots of the pharaohs including Tutankhamun.
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Karnak was the largest temple complex found in Ancient Egypt. It was built for the god Amun.
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A sphinx is a mythical creature with the body of a lion and the head of a human. This is the Great Sphinx of Giza. It is chiselled from limestone and has the face of Pharaoh Khafre.

The Rosetta Stone

A photo of the famous Rosetta Stone. It is a large, dark grey piece of granite with rough edges. It has inscriptions carved into it. — Image caption,
This is the Rosetta Stone. It is made from granite and it has three sets of inscriptions carved into it: Demotic, Hieroglyphs and ancient Greek. The broken top and bottom edges suggest it was part of a much bigger piece of stone.

The Rosetta Stone is over three feet high and more than 2000 years old. It was discovered by the French army in 1799 and captured by the British Army and brought back to London where it has been on display at the British Museum since 1802.

A person looking at the Rosetta Stone with their hand on their chin.

The Stone helped scholars to translate the Egyptian hieroglyphs for the first time. They looked at the inscriptions (writing) on the stone which are in Ancient Greek, already a known language.

Artefacts in the UK

In the UK we have some of the biggest collections of ancient Egyptian artefacts in the world.

Inside a museum with Ancient Egyptian artefacts.

The British Museum in London has the largest collection of Egyptian objects outside Egypt. This is because British explorers and soldiers took them during the time of the British Empire in the 19th and 20th centuries.