Ultimate Paragon
Banned
With a POD after the death of Ramesses the Great, keep the New Kingdom of Egypt alive for a much longer time.
AHC: Preserve the Egyptian Empire
- Thread starter Ultimate Paragon
- Start date
When you say "Egyptian Empire", do you mean the New Kingdom state specifically, or a powerful Egyptian civilization in general?
Because if it's the former, a few things need to happen...
1 - The damage done by the Sea People and Libyan migrations needs to be mitigated. This is very difficult to accomplish, as by that point the events setting the migrations in motion are basically irreversible.
2 - The power of several Egyptian institutions needs to be curtailed, namely the Army and the Priesthood. This is also difficult to accomplish, as the Ramesside Dynasty was basically born out of a military junta and will be relying on that institution for support. The Priesthood, meanwhile, is also most of the bureaucracy, without which the state cannot function.
Oh, and to cap it off - less intrigue and stabbing within the Royal Court would also be helpful.
3 - Economic reform. Most of the Egyptian economy was based on agriculture and Nubian gold. In OTL, two decades of droughts and bad harvest years crippled the economy and eventually led to mass insurrections (including the world's earliest known labour strikes). These probably can't be avoided (some scholars believe these events were due to climate change brought on by the Hekla 3 volcanic eruption in Iceland). Nubian gold will also eventually run out.
What Egypt needs is to become a more mercantile state; it needs to invest more in cottage industries outside the control of the Temple estates, and it needs to start dealing with the rest of the world on more equal economic terms - it needs to actually conduct large-scale trade rather than sit in its ivory tower collecting tribute.
Basically, a surviving New Kingdom is very difficult to pull off without laying the groundwork years beforehand. The foundations were shaky even in Ramesses II's time, despite all of his posturing. So you need either an earlier PoD, or a set of FAR more competent kings following Ramesses II's death. You basically need different people in charge throughout the 19th and 20th Dynasties, and they all need to be incredibly competent. I'm not sure Egypt can be that lucky given all the circumstances working against it. Egypt can come out better than it did in OTL and rebuild another Empire later (the 26th Dynasty is an excellent time for this), but I'm not sure the original New Kingdom Empire can survive intact.
Because if it's the former, a few things need to happen...
1 - The damage done by the Sea People and Libyan migrations needs to be mitigated. This is very difficult to accomplish, as by that point the events setting the migrations in motion are basically irreversible.
2 - The power of several Egyptian institutions needs to be curtailed, namely the Army and the Priesthood. This is also difficult to accomplish, as the Ramesside Dynasty was basically born out of a military junta and will be relying on that institution for support. The Priesthood, meanwhile, is also most of the bureaucracy, without which the state cannot function.
Oh, and to cap it off - less intrigue and stabbing within the Royal Court would also be helpful.
3 - Economic reform. Most of the Egyptian economy was based on agriculture and Nubian gold. In OTL, two decades of droughts and bad harvest years crippled the economy and eventually led to mass insurrections (including the world's earliest known labour strikes). These probably can't be avoided (some scholars believe these events were due to climate change brought on by the Hekla 3 volcanic eruption in Iceland). Nubian gold will also eventually run out.
What Egypt needs is to become a more mercantile state; it needs to invest more in cottage industries outside the control of the Temple estates, and it needs to start dealing with the rest of the world on more equal economic terms - it needs to actually conduct large-scale trade rather than sit in its ivory tower collecting tribute.
Basically, a surviving New Kingdom is very difficult to pull off without laying the groundwork years beforehand. The foundations were shaky even in Ramesses II's time, despite all of his posturing. So you need either an earlier PoD, or a set of FAR more competent kings following Ramesses II's death. You basically need different people in charge throughout the 19th and 20th Dynasties, and they all need to be incredibly competent. I'm not sure Egypt can be that lucky given all the circumstances working against it. Egypt can come out better than it did in OTL and rebuild another Empire later (the 26th Dynasty is an excellent time for this), but I'm not sure the original New Kingdom Empire can survive intact.