Late Period Egypt · 664-525 BC

Egypt's last pharaohs: the Saite revival

After Assyrian armies had sacked Thebes, a family from Sais rebuilt Egypt with Greek soldiers and Greek traders. Students explore a pharaoh who tried to dig a canal to the Red Sea and sent ships around Africa, until Persia arrived in 525 BC.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
50 minutes
Ages
12–15
On the map
3 steps, 660 BC to 525 BC
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

After Assyrian armies had sacked Thebes, a family from Sais rebuilt Egypt with Greek soldiers and Greek traders. Students explore a pharaoh who tried to dig a canal to the Red Sea and sent ships around Africa, until Persia arrived in 525 BC.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Locate Sais, Memphis, Naukratis and Thebes and explain why the capital moved to the Delta.
  • Explain how Greek soldiers and merchants came to Egypt and what each side gained.
  • Describe the Persian conquest of 525 BC and how Egypt became a province of a larger empire.
2

Explore the map

15 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

660 BC

A new start in the Delta

Open the map in 660 BC on the Nile Delta. Psamtik I of Sais had just reunited Egypt (664 BC) after the Assyrian invasions. Turn on the Cities layer: Memphis is there, but the Saite capital Sais lay in the western Delta. Why rule from the Delta rather than from Thebes far to the south?

Open this view on the map
b

600 BC

Greeks on the Nile

Stay in the Delta around 600 BC. Naukratis, on a western branch of the Nile, was the only port where Greek merchants were allowed to trade; Greek and Carian soldiers served in the pharaoh's army. Zoom to the western Delta and imagine a Greek town here, well inland on the river.

Open this view on the map
c

525 BC

Persia takes Egypt

Jump to 525 BC. The map shows Egypt inside the Persian Empire. Cambyses defeated the Egyptians at Pelusium, on the eastern edge of the Delta, and Egypt became a Persian province for most of the next two centuries. Find Pelusium at the Delta's eastern corner.

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

15 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. Egypt in 700 BC had been ruled in turn by Libyan chiefs, kings from Kush and Assyrian armies. What does it take for a country to "come back" after a century like that?
  2. Psamtik I hired Greek and Carian mercenaries. Why would a pharaoh trust foreign soldiers more than his own nobles?
  3. Herodotus says Necho II sent Phoenician sailors around Africa, and that they reported the sun on their right as they sailed west around the southern tip. Why does that odd detail make historians take the story seriously?
  4. Saite artists copied the styles of the Old Kingdom, 2,000 years earlier. Why do societies look back to a golden age when they rebuild?
  5. After 525 BC the Persian kings called themselves pharaohs and built temples in Egypt. Was Egypt conquered, or did it absorb another ruler?
4

Game round

10 min

Play one round as Hatshepsut or Ramesses II, pharaohs of Egypt's great days, then ask: a Saite pharaoh had far less money and no empire. Which of the decisions you made would still have been possible for Psamtik I?

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

€19 per month unlocks every worksheet, every live lesson and the class workspace. The free lesson prints without a subscription.